BEAT THE STORY-DRUM, PUM-PUM

Five more transplanted African folktales, equipped, for reading aloud, with much pum-pum, uh-huh, and a little be-bop, by the author/artist of The Ox of the Wonderful Horns. The idiom is less African than mock-hip Afro-American, with Frog bopping along, another Frog "hip, quick, and happy," and Monkey jabbering in scat. The tales can be just plain silly, as is Monkey who becomes so wrapped up in his "shoo bee do" and "hay baa ba ree bop" delivery that he forgets the message he was to deliver to the head chief; or they can be gently moral, as when a young frog and snake make friends—until their prejudiced mothers warn them about each others' treacherous ways. There is a less gentle parallel to the European "Little Red Hen," and an origin tale chiding rabbit, who sends another to pick up his tail and thus gets the leavings when tails are provided by the god Raluvhemba, King of the Bavenda. This is a marginal addition to an African folktale collection, but the stories bop along jauntily. Pointed up with Bryan's fluent, emphatic woodcuts, they could catch the eye and the ear of a TV-trained audience.