Pooh’s New Clothes

Pooh’s New Clothes is a retelling of The Emperor’s New Clothes (Aarne-Thompson type 1620), starring Winnie-the-Pooh.

In this story, Sly Fox has come to the Hundred Acre Wood, and is showing off clothes. He offers to make Winnie-the-Pooh a suit of clothes, in exchange for all of his honey. The clothes, he says, will be made of a wonderful, magical cloth, which only wise people can see. All the residents of the hundred acre wood come to see the clothes as they are being made, and pretend to be able to see them (except for Roo, who insists there are no clothes). At last, the clothes are done, and Pooh asks everyone how he looks. They compliment his new clothes, and so Winnie-the-Pooh believes that although he is not wise enough to see them, at least his friends are. But the trick is revealed when Pooh asks Christopher Robin how he looks, and is told he’s only wearing the same clothes as always–for no one is wiser than Christopher Robin.

The story is, of course, just the same as The Emperor’s New Clothes, down to a child (Roo) being the only one to admit he can’t see the clothes. It’s a little spoilt by the truth being revealed by Christopher Robin, rather than Roo being believed, but this is a story about Winnie-the-Pooh, after all. It’s a fun little story. And Pooh is wiser than he believes–when the trick is revealed, Pooh wishes he’d kept a little honey, for “it helps to have honey at a time like this,” which is quite right.

The illustrations are again nice in this volume. It’s especially fun to see Sly Fox showing the empty clothes hanger to everyone, and to see Pooh staring at it appraisingly, as though he’d be able to see the clothes if only he looked hard enough.

Pooh’s New Clothes is a fun story with nice illustrations–a worthy addition to the Walt Disney Fun-to-Read Library.

Goofy’s Big Race

Goofy’s Big Race is a retelling of The Tortoise and the Hare, with Goofy in place of the tortoise and Donald Duck in place of the hare.

Donald and Goofy meet on the road one day. Donald is driving a fast, new car, while Goofy is driving an old, slow car (which he calls ‘Bessie’). Donald challenges Goofy to a race to the ice cream shop. Donald, overconfident, makes many stops to wash his car, eat, play baseball, and even take a nap. Goofy, though, presses on, saying “slow and steady, steady and slow, that’s the way to go.” In the end, of course, Goofy beats Donald to the ice cream shop, much to Donald’s surprise and dismay.

Again I say it: I’m a sucker for retellings of classic folk tales, and they don’t get much more classic than The Tortoise and the Hare. The story in this one is fairly fun; not as good as Mickey Meets the Giant, but still nice.

As usual for books in Walt Disney’s Fun-to-Read Library, the illustrations are great. It’s fun to see Donald’s misfortunes as he keeps taking breaks from the race, and in the illustration of Donald napping under a tree, there’s even a rabbit napping there with him, in a nod to the original tale.

Goofy’s Big Race is a good children’s book, and is certainly one of the better books in Walt Disney’s Fun-to-Read Library, living up to that series’s name.

Mickey Meets the Giant

Mickey Meets the Giant puts Mickey Mouse in the shoes of a number of classic folk tale heroes, similar in particular to The Valiant Little Tailor (not an unfamiliar role for Mickey).

In this story, Mickey is a woodcutter, and when he goes into a town to get his axe sharpened, he hears that a giant has been terrorizing the town, and offers to stop him. At length, the towspeople send him off with the supplies he’s requested: a bag, a drinking straw, and a cheese.

He tricks the giant into solving some of the problems he’s caused, and then challenges the giant to see who can squeeze the most water from a stone (this is Aarne-Thompson type 1060). The giant can’t squeeze out any, but Mickey pretends the cheese is a stone, and squeezes whey from it. Seeing this, the giant is frightened of Mickey, and ran away. The town is saved, and Mickey is a hero.

The story is great–I’m a sucker for retellings of classic folk tales, and I definitely support exposing children to these stories that are the foundations of so much modern literature.

The illustrations are lovely and colorful. As expected of a children’s book, it’s quite possible to understand the story just by looking at the pictures.

Mickey Meets the Giant is a great, fun book for kids.