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How the Whale Became: and Other Stories
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Ted Hughes' explanations of the development of animals and their particular characteristics are creative, funny and sometimes sad: they are stories he read to his own children and they are a joy to read aloud still...Jackie Morris' splendid illustrations really do capture the magical quality of the stories. (The Ultimate First Book Guide )
Published in paperback for the first time, these acclaimed stories by a master craftsman will delight another generation of children for years to come. (Angels and Urchins )
This collection of fables and creation tales introduces young readers to the pleasures of a great poet's prose style and his core material of the natural world and the stories that shape it. The eleven tales, written for Hughes's own children, demonstrate his refusal to compromise on sophistication of language and ideas when writing for children, confident that their minds were ready for his vision. They are ripe for reading aloud, and children will develop storytelling skills as they enjoy the jokes in each story. (Julia Eccleshare 1001 Children's Books You Must Read Before You Grow Up ) --This text refers to an alternate Paperback edition.
Published in paperback for the first time, these acclaimed stories by a master craftsman will delight another generation of children for years to come. (Angels and Urchins )
This collection of fables and creation tales introduces young readers to the pleasures of a great poet's prose style and his core material of the natural world and the stories that shape it. The eleven tales, written for Hughes's own children, demonstrate his refusal to compromise on sophistication of language and ideas when writing for children, confident that their minds were ready for his vision. They are ripe for reading aloud, and children will develop storytelling skills as they enjoy the jokes in each story. (Julia Eccleshare 1001 Children's Books You Must Read Before You Grow Up ) --This text refers to an alternate Paperback edition.
Review
"This collection of fables and creation tales introduces young readers to the pleasures of a great poet's prose style."
-- "1001 Children's Books You Must Read Before You Grow Up"
-- "1001 Children's Books You Must Read Before You Grow Up"
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
7 of 7 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
This is a magnificent book, ravishingly illustrated with integrity and style. I loved these stories as a child and was haunted by them. I've had a whale of a time revisting Hughes' masterly prose, especially in such a fittingly lavish edition. An absolute classic.
3 of 3 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
I knew it was an excellent book before I ordered it, but this edition is beautifully illustrated. My class of 7-8 year olds love it.
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Hughes's Darwinian Account of Creation
28 April 2012
Format:Kindle Edition|Amazon Verified Purchase
Whales began as a black bean in God's garden, bees were created by a demon jealous of God's creating, Hughes takes considerable licence with the creation myth. Relying upon Darwinism, Hughes imagines all ab initio, without recourse to traditional, Judaeo-Christian mythology. At times Hughes is as effective with his animals as Rudyard Kipling was in the Jungle Books: at other times, however, Hughes's animals inhabit a world redolent of a human society no one would want to live in. This is particularly apparent in the story, How the Tortoise Became. Tortoise in his becoming is bullied and 'bear-baited' unbearably by the other animals. One shudders at the society Hughes must have known: here preserved for posterity. Hughes's animals lack serenity, and one assumes that Hughes also lacked this quality. Comparisons with Kipling's Jungle Books need to be qualified.
Hughes portrays God as like a Greek or Roman god: humanized. Occasionally, however, God does live up to His Judaeo-Christian ancestry. The question arises, as in his children's books Hughes makes a bid for children's imaginations, that crucible of morality's concern, how seriously Hughes is to be taken. We know from Hughes's letters that Hughes was not religious (although in a late poem, "6 September 1997", Hughes embraces catholicism): in a letter to Aurelia Plath about his wife's suicide he writes that if there were an eternity he was damned in it but that he had no desire for forgiveness. In this children's book he propogates this agnosticism. Parents, perhaps, are to be warned. Are Hughes's 'agnostic' works for children merely literary curiosities or has Hughes grasped something more time-enduring (are we indeed emancipating ourselves from religion - more specifically, Judaeo-Christianity?)? Believers would surely opine that Hughes's unbelief is but a curiosity.
Hughes portrays God as like a Greek or Roman god: humanized. Occasionally, however, God does live up to His Judaeo-Christian ancestry. The question arises, as in his children's books Hughes makes a bid for children's imaginations, that crucible of morality's concern, how seriously Hughes is to be taken. We know from Hughes's letters that Hughes was not religious (although in a late poem, "6 September 1997", Hughes embraces catholicism): in a letter to Aurelia Plath about his wife's suicide he writes that if there were an eternity he was damned in it but that he had no desire for forgiveness. In this children's book he propogates this agnosticism. Parents, perhaps, are to be warned. Are Hughes's 'agnostic' works for children merely literary curiosities or has Hughes grasped something more time-enduring (are we indeed emancipating ourselves from religion - more specifically, Judaeo-Christianity?)? Believers would surely opine that Hughes's unbelief is but a curiosity.
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