Tales of India: Folktales from Bengal, Punjab, and Tamil Nadu consists of sixteen stories from the late 1800s through the early 1900s retold and illustrated by Svabhu Kohl and Viplov Singh. These public domain titles repeated over the years by the English and Native inhabitants of India, follow the traditional style we expect when reading old fairy tales. Full of magic, talking animals, evil doers, love, betrayal, kings and queens, kidnappings, rescues, and heroes who are able to overcome adversity through their cleverness, they are sure to delight the lovers of folk lore. With some colorful end pages consisting of a floral pattern alternating yellow, green, pink, orange, red, blue designs, which attractively gives off a sense of ease, the tone is set for the narratives the reader is about to experience.
There are three sections – Animal Tales, Outwitting and Outwitted, and Life and Death, with each story beginning with a “framed” illustration full of color and whimsy which provides an inkling of the subject matter of that particular tale. There are a variety of adventures lasting between three and ten pages including The Bengal story, The Brahman Girl Who Married A Tiger, featuring a young girl who is tricked into marrying a tiger and has to be rescued by her brothers; the Punjab folk lore, The King and the Robbers, which tells about a disguised king on a lark who joins a group of thieves and ends up raiding his own palace treasures, each individual contributing their unique special talent; and the Tamil Nadu tale, The Beggar and the Five Muffins, about a couple who are almost burned alive for the sake of an extra serving of dinner. This book would be the perfect addition to any collection of folk and fairy tales.
Four stars and a thank you to Netgalley for providing this ARC in exchange for an honest review.
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