Judge Rabbit and the Tree Spirit: A Folktale from Cambodia/Bilingual in English and Khmer - Hardcover

Text: English

Kindergarten-Grade 3-- Brer Rabbit has a clever Cambodian counterpart in Judge Rabbit, a wise yet often mischievous hare who deals directly with people, solving their problems, and sometimes playing tricks on them. In this particular folktale, told in English and Khmer, a young husband must leave his new wife at the king's request to fight enemy invaders. Pausing in his march to war to rest under a banyan tree, he turns back three times, but finally chooses duty over love. Now within that tree dwells a spirit, who decides to see just what the man has left behind. Discovering a beautiful but sad wife, he decides to make her--and himself--happy by changing shape to look exactly like her husband. All goes well until the woman's husband returns. Who is the real husband? Shrewd Judge Rabbit comes up with the solution, which sees the grateful couple reunited and the tree spirit succumbing to his own vanity. Stylized floral borders enclose the English text on the left; vibrant primitive-style pictures, with flora and fauna fanciful yet realistic, appear with the much smaller Khmer text on the right. The illustrations, done in silkscreen, watercolor, and colored pencil, capture the feel of Cambodian life and leave the impression of elaborate Southeast Asian stitchery. However, the human figures and the tree spirit are sometimes awkwardly rendered, and it is unfortunate the blocks of Khmer text had to be placed within the illustrations. The story itself is neither as appealing a tale nor as lively a retelling as the Judge Rabbit folktale found in UNESCO's Folk Tales from Asia for Children Everywhere, Book 4 (Weatherhill, 1976; o.p.), but certainly larger folklore collections and libraries serving a Cambodian population will want it. --Diane S. Marton, Arlington County Library, VA
Copyright 1991 Reed Business Information, Inc.