THE TIGER AND THE WISE MAN

Sprightly storytelling and cartoon art featuring a huge, vibrantly colored tiger set this version of a familiar tale apart from other renditions. Having incautiously set a caged tiger free, a turban-clad elder puts off becoming “Lunch-on-Legs” by asking a banyan tree, a crocodile and an eagle whether Tiger’s being fair. All three agree that, considering what people have done to them, Tiger is perfectly justified in chowing down forthwith—but just as he’s about to dine, along comes a smooth-talking jackal to trick him back into the cage. Peters, billed as “Britain’s tallest storyteller,” writes with a conversational fluency—“You were hungry. And now you’ve got your just desserts! Well, toodle-ooh!”—aptly echoed in comically changeable expressions on the faces of Tiger and the other figures. A lively alternative to the more formalized likes of Suzanne Crowder Han’s Rabbit’s Judgment (1994), illustrated by Yumi Heo. (Picture book/folktale. 7-9)