Tale of a Tail
 Judit Z. Bodnar
 Illustrated by John Sandford
 (Reviewed by The Editor - Rebecca Brown)
 1998 Lothrop, Lee & Shepard Books/Morrow, NY
  ISBN: 0688121748


More than anything else in the world, Fox loves to eat fish. Bear is hungry too & insists Fox share his catch. Fox is clever & on the spur of the moment comes up with a scheme that will rid him of bumbling Bear once & for all, or will it?

Judit Bodnar's rollicking tale of tables turned & turned again, in a funny & Aesopian tall tale, is wonderfully endowed by John Sandford's awesome artistry of an amazingly enchanted forest!

It was the pictures that drew me in, deeper & deeper, so filled with details & whimsy. They have got to be seen to be believed!

Foxes are quick-witted creatures, They also like to read books while they're fishing! A fox who reads books already has my attention!

When Fox catches a whole basket of trout & makes his way home, even my mouth was watering! Just as he is about to enjoy his feast, there's a Kop-kop-kop at his door & wheedling Big Bear pokes his nose in, sniffing at the lovely aroma of all those fish.

Now Fox is not a polite neighbor, he's too hungry & greedy, so he tells his friend to take a hike. Bear is persistent & hoping to distract Fox, asks him for advice on how to catch fish. As if a Bear didn't already know that! Still Fox, being so clever, thinks to give Bear a bit of a hard time &, while snuggled down beside his fire, he tells Bear how to fish for fish.

Well, Bear goes to the lake & in the middle of a miserably cold winter night, does as Fox told him. The wind moans & Bear shivers. The lake freezes over & Bear blows on his paws to keep warm & waits.

When daylight arrives, Bear gets up to leave, having caught not one fish. The trouble is, his tail has been frozen in the lake. With a mighty heave, Bear pulls the whole lake out & drags it on home, muttering at his Foxy friend all the way.

It's hot work hauling a frozen lake, even in the winter sunshine & soon, it melts &, what do you know! Bear gets all the trout he could possibly want! Whoopee!

A Note from the Author: “When my family moved to the United States and I started school, my mother and I knew no English. So the stories my parents told me in my native language gave me special comfort in a new, strange world. Tale of a Tail is inspired by one of those tellings. Although I have told it in English, of course, I've tried to keep the rhythm and flavor of the Hungarian stories I loved so much as a child.”

Judit Z. Bodnar also wrote: A Wagonload of Fish. I sure hope she tells us some more tales! She has earned degrees in anthropology & library science. When Judit & her husband, Jack, & their two children, two cats & one large “Dumberman” are not living in a tiny New York apartment & they can be found in an old Pennsylvania coal miner's house.

John Sandford graduated from the American Academy of Art & is the illustrator of more than 40 books, including Barbara Mitchell's Down Buttermilk Lane. He lives with his wife, Francis, his daughter, Eleanor, & their dog, Lida Rose, in a creaky old Chicago house filled with books, noise & crackpot ideas.
(07/29/01)

Rebecca