AFRICAN ANIMAL TALES

Ten fables featuring rivals outsmarted, deftly delivered lessons, and sparkling humor, collected and retold (originally in Portuguese) by a UN worker in Guinea-Bissau. Ever wonder ``Why Dogs Sniff Each Other''? A canine king is still looking for his perfumed messenger, who went off to seek a mate rather than deliver a declaration of war. ``The Cat and the Rat'' are ever enemies because once, in a flood, Rat couldn't stop nibbling on their cassava raft. Like the mosquito in Aardema's Why Mosquitoes Buzz in People's Ears, ``The Considerate Fly'' sets off a chain of calamities—but unlike the mosquito, she confesses and is pardoned. Guthrie's prose is conventional, without sound effects or other oral devices, but it reads aloud well, and Fittipaldi's stylized, Afro-Cubist figures dance and gesticulate energetically (people, in traditional Yoruba dress, appear as often as animals). A lively companion to Courlander's Cow-Tail Switch, Arkhurst's Adventures of Spider, and other collections of West African folktales. Afterword from the translator. (Folklore. 9-12)