THE TALES OF UNCLE REMUS: THE ADVENTURES...

THE TALES OF UNCLE REMUS: THE ADVENTURES OF BRER RABBIT, as told by Julius Lester (Dial: $15; 151 pp.; age 6-up). Used to be that an evening of folk tales was a social event where children listened from adult laps, a cat or two curled by the hearth. That we’ve allowd this ritual to fade reveals “our society’s spiritual impoverishment,” especially since we now consider these tales just kids’ stuff. In a foreword as rich as the stories it precedes, Julius Lester encourages white people to experiment with his “black English” and paraphrase until the language feels right. His purpose with this volume is “to make the tales accessible again, to be told in the living rooms of condominiums as well as on front porches in the South.”

His personal sense of humor is evident as he sneaks in modern America with references to deodorant, cottage cheese diets and tuna fish casseroles. This also keeps true to traditional black folktelling which, unlike myths, mirrors the culture of its audience and makes each story wonderfully fun to hear. Listen: “Brer Fox took off down the road, through the woods, down the valley, up the hill, down the hill, round the bend, through the creek, and past the shopping mall, until he came to Brer Rabbit’s house. (Wasn’t no shopping mall there. I just put that in to see if you was listening).”

Jerry Pinkney’s four double-spread watercolors and 20 pencil drawings make this a friendly book any child would love to peruse. The excellence of his artwork was recognized last year at the International Children’s Book Illustration Exhibition at the Bologna Book Fair.

Among Lester’s many awards, his “To Be a Slave” was the first Newbery Honor Book (1969) to be won by a black author. In his introduction to “Uncle Remus,” he says he hopes these stories will enter “the minds and hearts of as many people as possible. . . . The suffering of those slaves who created the tales will be redeemed (to a degree at least) if you receive their offering and make it part of your life.” Read these aloud to your children; read them to your friends.