THE KING AND THE TORTOISE

A king who is impressed with his own cleverness orders a robe of smoke. After Rabbit, Leopard, and several other animals fail to weave one, Tortoise plods up to announce that he can—but he'll need a thread of fire to finish it. The king, who actually is pretty sharp, saves face by answering that he doesn't really want the robe, and is satisfied by just knowing that there's someone clever enough to make it. Blankley decorates borders and endpapers with designs from Cameroon and paints groups of smiling people, in traditional dress, mingling amicably with wild creatures. Though text and illustrations differ in some details (Mollel describes the king's body as ``enormous,'' but in the pictures it merely looks a bit flabby), together they create an entertaining, benign (those who fail suffer only embarrassment) variation on the ``impossible task/impossible countertask'' motif common to many folk traditions. (Folklore/Picture book. 8-10)