Usborneの My Reading Library案内

This paper is a guide to Usborne's "My Reading Library" box of 50 little illustrated books for children, which consists of 14 books from Usborne First Reading Level Three, 16 books from Usborne First Reading Level Four, and 20 books from Usborne Young Reading Series One. The contents are retold stories mainly from Aesop's fables such as The Boy Who Cried Wolf, The Hare and the Tortoise, The Town Mouse and the Country Mouse, and Androcles and the Lion; Grimm brothers' collected folk tales like The Musicians of Bremen, Little Red Riding Hood, Hansel and Gretel etc.; and Hans Christian Andersen's original stories such as The Tin Soldier, The Ugly Duckling, The Emperor and the Nightingale, and The Little Mermaid. Charles Perrault's Cinderella and Grimm's Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, Rapunzel, and Sleeping Beauty must be appealing to young readers as the stories of Disney's animated films. Along with these famous tales, Japan's The Inch Prince, China's The Monkey King, Russia's The Little Red Hen, Armenia's The Golden Carpet, Persia's Ali Baba and the Forty Thieves, and Ghana's The Leopard and the Sky God create an international atmosphere, making My Reading Library a charming collection of children's world literature.<BR> According to Usborne Publishing's policy, these books are intended to guide children through the early stages of reading with the help of their parents. The publisher advises the adults to "try to find a little time every day to sit down with your child and read together," which means the above stories are written and illustrated for both children and their parents; regardless of age, the intended readers are native speakers of English. That's why My Reading Library books are full of lively expressions and impressive descriptions; thus they must be more enjoyable for Japanese adults than ordinary graded readers for young students learning English as a foreign language like Compass Classic Readers dealing with the same materials, which tend to be too easy to appreciate. While Usborne's The Boy Who Cried Wolf is an exception that changes the violent ending of the boy being eaten by the wolf into a happy one, Ali Baba and the Forty Thieves retains the shocking scenes of how Ali Baba's brother and the thieves were cruelly killed. Hans Christian Andersen would be glad to know that Katie Daynes keeps the sad ending of his masterpiece The Little Mermaid. Modernizing classics, however, is also Usborne's advantage: The Hare and Tortoise and Hansel and Gretel have modern settings so that the reader can sympathize with characters more easily. Everyone cannot help smiling at the newly added scene to the former: "It was a beautiful day. Harry saw some television cameras and did a little running specially for them." Probably adult readers will feel sorry for the poor woodcutter in the latter complaining about "electric fires and plastic furniture," compelled by his new wife to discard his own children.<BR> Among others, I enjoyed Susanna Davidson's humorous version of The Frog Prince with a lot of laughter thanks to her comical changes and Mike Gordon's appropriate illustrations. Also, I recommend Kate Knighton's Sleeping Beauty since her artistic narrative is worth reading as a real fantasy. I bet that not only English-speaking children and their parents but foreign adult learners of English will rediscover charm and attraction in the newly retold books of the classic stories they are so familiar with.