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THE HARE AND THE TORTOISE by Caroline--Adapt. Castle

THE HARE AND THE TORTOISE

By

Pub Date: March 18th, 1985
Publisher: Dial/Dutton

The fable amplified and personalized--""There was something about Tortoise that really annoyed Hare. . . Maybe it was the way Tortoise stayed in bed until lunch time, or the way he never cared what time it was""--with virtuoso (if slightly mannered) watercolor illustrations in the Charles Robinson/Arthur Rackham/Ernest Shepard tradition. True, the whole shebang might look a pastiche to the purist: Wind in the Willow settings, personalities (Badger, Mole), and appurtenances (picnic hamper, Edwardian garb); racing-silk dream fantasy for the napping Hare; mutliple-image dash, belatedly, to the finish line. But both Castle, in the retelling, and Weevers, in the depiction, skirt burlesque: if you can conceive of the Tortoise/Hare contest as a public event (tickets, balloons) in the life of Britain's storied small animals, this is an acceptable rendition thereof.