Uncle Remus: His Songs and Sayings has been reviewed and added to the HIH booklist. It is written in "ole broken English," so may be difficult for little ones to read on their own. I've placed it further down on the list for this reason. It is however a good, decent book with moral points to the stories. These stories were passed down as folk-stories, thought to be part of oral traditions brought over from Africa. The author wrote them to reflect the Gullah dialect of the Deep South. Learn more about Gullah Culture.
Also, if you're looking for a good book to read to the children, this will do fine. My kids enjoyed it a lot, and asked me to read it again and again. Of all the stories, "Tar Baby" was their favorite. Some of us may be offended by the old slave stereotypes; it provides an opportunity to teach about these stereotypes to older children.
It's not screen time - it's book time. Kindle for Kids Bundle $99
2-Year Accident Protection, Kid-Friendly Cover
2-Year Accident Protection, Kid-Friendly Cover
About the Author:
Joel Chandler Harris (1848-1908) collected the folktales of Southern African Americans and retold them as classic stories of Uncle Remus, a fictitious old slave who spun stories to a boy from “the big house of a plantation.” He said that he listened to the stories, memorizing the Black American animal folktales told by George Terrell, Old Harbert and Aunt Crissy. They were slaves who lived on the plantation where he worked as an apprentice in Georgia as a teen. He wrote five books featuring Uncle Remus and his stories of Brer Rabbit and friends. The movie "Song of the South" was based on the stories or Brer Rabbit and friends.
In his fictionalized autobiography On the Plantation, he credited the slaves he gleaned the stories from, acknowledging his debt to them. It is interesting to know that these stories have direct equivalent tales in the African oral tradition.
Harris later became a folklorist, journalist and editor of the Atlanta Constitutional. He was a proponent of the New South ideology, a reformist view that espoused "modernization of racial attitudes" of the Old South during the reconstruction period.
Joel Chandler Harris (1848-1908) collected the folktales of Southern African Americans and retold them as classic stories of Uncle Remus, a fictitious old slave who spun stories to a boy from “the big house of a plantation.” He said that he listened to the stories, memorizing the Black American animal folktales told by George Terrell, Old Harbert and Aunt Crissy. They were slaves who lived on the plantation where he worked as an apprentice in Georgia as a teen. He wrote five books featuring Uncle Remus and his stories of Brer Rabbit and friends. The movie "Song of the South" was based on the stories or Brer Rabbit and friends.
In his fictionalized autobiography On the Plantation, he credited the slaves he gleaned the stories from, acknowledging his debt to them. It is interesting to know that these stories have direct equivalent tales in the African oral tradition.
Harris later became a folklorist, journalist and editor of the Atlanta Constitutional. He was a proponent of the New South ideology, a reformist view that espoused "modernization of racial attitudes" of the Old South during the reconstruction period.
RSS Feed
