I’d like to commend to you a series of adaptations of Joel Chandler Harris’ Uncle Remus stories, Jump!, Jump Again!, and Jump On Over!. The language is smoothed out quite a bit from the originals by Van Dyke Parks and Malcolm Jones, but the flavor of it is still there and strong. Barry Moser’s watercolors are as marvelously realistic as renditions of a bunch of Southern anthropomorphics could be. These aren’t picture books, but there’s a very nice illustration on most pages, and the individual stories take about 5-10 minutes to read each.
The books seem to be falling out of print, but there are still plenty of used copies available.
The books are rated pre-school to third grade (4-8). Katherine seems to be greatly enjoying the Brer Rabbit tales (her favorite thus far is that of Brer Weasel), and I think these are books we’ll come back to multiple times.
UPDATE: I’m back on Blogcritics again, and an extended version of this review can be found here.