THE RABBIT'S TAIL

An uproarious tangled tale from Han (The Rabbit’s Judgment, 1994, etc.) that works, because it retains the natural and spontaneous inventiveness of its folk origins. Long ago when “tigers smoked pipes and rabbits had long tails” a tiger wanders into a farmer’s barnyard to nab some dinner. Inside, the tiger overhears a mother trying to quiet her wailing baby: first she threatens that a fierce tiger might overhear the noisy child, and then she offers it a bit of dried persimmon to suck on. That quiets the baby, but the eavesdropping tiger comes away with the information that the dried persimmon must be fiercer, scarier, and stronger than he is. Later, a thief who’s also casing the barnyard lands on the tiger’s back; the tiger is frantic, believing that a dreadful dried persimmon is clinging to his fur. When a skeptical rabbit who hears the tiger’s story goes to investigate the monstrous dried persimmon, he also gets a scare and loses his tail. The twists and turns of the plot are conveyed with energy, while Wehrman’s conjuring of the persimmon into an all-powerful entity helps readers sympathize with the tiger’s fears. A story-hour gem. (Picture book/folklore. 5-9)