More Brer Rabbit Stories (Storytime Library, Award, 1982, retold and illustrated by Rene Cloke)

Photo: My collection
More Brer Rabbit Stories
Illustrated by Rene Cloke
ISBN 0 86163 083 1
© Award Publications Limited 1982
Spring House, Spring Place
Kentish Town London NW5, 3BH, England
Reprinted 1982-83-84-85
Printed in Hungary

This vintage picture book of four Brer Rabbit stories written and illustrated by Rene Cloke was first published by Award Publications in 1982 as part of their Storytime Library series. For a list of the other books in the Storytime Library series (and links to my reviews), see Storytime Library Series.

My collection appears to be a 1985 reprint. This appears to be the original 1982 edition:

Image source: Amazon

For more information about the context and background, and for a list of the full range of Brer Rabbit stories written and illustrated by Rene Cloke, along with my reviews of her other Brer Rabbit stories, see Rene Cloke's Brer Rabbit Stories.

The More Brer Rabbit Stories collection published by Award in 1982 was Cloke's second collection of Brer Rabbit stories. My reprint edition is a large hardcover book of 33.5 by 23.5 cm, with a beautiful deep blue cover, with yellow and black writing, that matches the first book in the collection, although the blue dominating the cover is slightly darker in shade. 

The front cover image doesn't appear to relate any of the stories in the collection, but illustrates typical dynamics in the stories, with Brer Rabbit and Brer Tortoise plotting some trick in the foreground, and their three adversaries, Brer Bear, Brer Wolf, and Brer Fox, spying on them in the background, plotting how they can get those two to become a good meal. 

The back cover is also blue, advertising the full set of titles in the StoryTime Library series (six in total), and features a circular illustration that also doesn't appear in the book – Brer Rabbit happily picking pansies and dahlias.

Back cover of More Brer Rabbit Stories

The front and back endpapers are the same as the other Brer Rabbit books in the Storytime Library series. The endpapers show images of Brer Rabbit and other characters from the stories, along with English woodland animals like red squirrels, a great tit, and harvest mice. The scenes include Brer Rabbit in the well bucket and in the briar patch (both from stories that appear in this collection), and several images of Brer Tortoise and Brer Fox.

On the other side of the loose front endpaper is a combined bookplate and copyright page, which contains an illustration of Brer Rabbit, standing on the back of his friend Brer Tortoise, painting a road sign where children can write their name under "This book belongs to me". Brer Fox hangs on the back of the sign, grinning. 

The title page shows an image of Brer Rabbit, Brer Tortoise, and a Common Frog hopping along stepping stones in a watery landscape while a tree with a face and a kingfisher perched on a branch look on.

There is no contents page, but the collection contains four stories, titled as:

• Brer Rabbit and Brer Fox
• The Tar-Baby
• Brer Rabbit and Brer Tortoise
• Brer Rabbit and Brer Fox Go Fishing

The collection is unpaginated, but (like Cloke's first Brer Rabbit book) each story is told over four pages, taking the collection to a total of 16 pages (not counting the front matter and endpapers).

As with the earlier Brer Rabbit collection, the stories are told in twentieth century British English, with adaptations to a British setting, and the illustrations evoke the English countryside, including animal characters that are English in dress and appearance. 

Brer Rabbit and Brer Fox

I've identified this tale as a retelling of "Mr. Wolf Makes a Failure" from Chapter XI of "Legends of the Old Plantation" in Joel Chandler Harris's Uncle Remus: His Songs and His Sayings.*

In Cloke's retelling, we are introduced to Brer Rabbit:

Brer Rabbit was a naughty little fellow. He liked to play tricks on Brer Fox, Brer Wolf and the other animals who were always trying to catch him. But Brer Rabbit was so clever that he managed to escape every time and went on playing his tricks.

This gives context to what happens next:

One day, Brer Wolf and Brer Fox decided to put a stop to this so they made a plan.

Brer Wolf suggests Brer Fox pretend to be dead so he can catch Brer Rabbit unawares. Brer Fox agrees to give this a try so Brer Wolf calls on Brer Rabbit at his house and delivers the news. Brer Rabbit suspects this is a trick but goes to Brer Fox's house to check. At the house he says aloud:

You can always tell when a fox is dead ... because he keeps shaking his left leg.

Brer Fox obliges, wanting to appear dead, and Brer Rabbit dashes home.

"They can't catch me with that trick," he laughed. And he went on laughing all the time he was having his tea.

The illustrations show a happy-go-lucky Brer Rabbit dressed in red patched trousers, brown shoes and a black coat, initially wearing a flower in his hair. Several times he is shown without the coat on, wearing just a white shirt and suspenders. 

His house has brambles (wild blackberries) growing up the outer wall in autumnal glory (perhaps to link in with the second story of the collection, where such brambles are shown in more detail to be the famous briar patch). He peers out of a window with green shutters to hear Brer Wolf's news. Later, he sits at a small round table in a comfortable green armchair to drink tea out of a blue and white porcelain tea set. On the inside, his green window shutters are cheerfully decorated with a creamy yellow curtain that matches his tablecloth.

Brer Wolf wears a blue patterned cravat with a green coat and black pants. Brer Fox looks less well-to-do in this story than in the previous collection, here wearing a yellow long-sleeved shirt and blue trousers, although his staged death scene shows him lying in a fine half-tester bed, wearing striped blue pyjamas (the scene that the 1982 edition uses as a cover illustration).

The Tar-Baby

This story is easily identified as a retelling of "The Wonderful Tar Baby Story" from Chapter II of "Legends of the Old Plantation" in Joel Chandler Harris's Uncle Remus: His Songs and His Sayings.*

In Cloke's story, Brer Fox comes up with a plan to catch Brer Rabbit by creating a tar-baby that he puts on a stick near Brer Rabbit's house. He hides in some bushes.

Before long, Brer Rabbit came walking by and, when he saw the tar-baby, he stopped and looked at it in surprise; he had never seen anything quite like that before.

Brer Rabbit tries to communicate with the tar-baby and when it doesn't respond he becomes so angry he hits the tar-baby and gets stuck to it. When Brer Fox gloats "now I've caught you at last and I mean to punish you", Brer Rabbit thinks quickly and tells Brer Fox he can do what he likes with him but begs him not to throw him into the briar patch.

Hang me or drown me but, please, don't throw me into the briar patch!

This famous example of reverse psychology works as intended, as Brer Fox thinks this must be the best way to hurt him and flings him into the briar patch. Of course, Brer Rabbit got what he wanted and laughs as he scampers home:

I was born and bred in a briar patch!

"The Tar-Baby" is generally considered the most famous Brer Rabbit story. In the context of Cloke's set of cosy retellings, Brer Rabbit getting angry and hitting the tar baby seems out of character in its violence, but the trickery that helps him win his way free remains delightful. 

Brer Fox is dressed as an English gentleman in these illustrations, wearing a purple and yellow chequered coat, with purple cravat, deep yellow waistcoat, and pale yellow pants. Brer Rabbit is very much a rural worker in a pale yellow smock-frock and patched red pants.

I find the image of Brer Rabbit falling into the briar patch just lovely. The wild brambles are a riot of colour and form, droplets of tar are falling off his paws as he descends head first with a grin on his face, and a number of English woodland creatures look on, including a great tit, a brambling, and a vole.

The English wild blackberry bush (Rubus fruticosus, otherwise known as the bramble) that Cloke illustrates in this story is common in the English countryside, but not so far removed from the briar patch of Harris's collected Brer Rabbit tales, which is also often thought to be thorny blackberry thickets (as the Joyful Botanist says: "most likely a tangled mess of common blackberry brambles (Rubus allegheniensis)". 

Brer Rabbit and Brer Tortoise

I've identified this tale as a retelling of "Brother Rabbit Rescues Brer Terrapin" from Chapter LXX of Joel Chandler Harris's Nights with Uncle Remus.*

In Cloke's version of this story, Brer Rabbit sees Brer Fox carrying something in a sack and realises it is his friend Brer Tortoise. He wants to help him so hurries to get to Brer Fox's house before him, and rips up his flower bed. 

When Brer Fox arrives, Brer Rabbit calls out to him that someone is tearing up plants in his garden. Brer Fox drops the sack to search for the "rascal" and Brer Rabbit promptly frees Brer Tortoise. They then stuff the sack with "one of Brer Fox's beehives". 

Brer Rabbit and Brer Tortoise hide in the bushes and when Brer Fox comes back, "angry because he couldn't find anyone pulling up his plants", he rushes inside with the sack. Soon Brer Fox comes running outside, attacked by bees.

"I thought I had captured a tortoise in my sack!" howled Brer Fox, "how can I have made such a mistake?"

Brer Fox is very gullible in this story, listening to the known trickster, Brer Rabbit, accusing someone else of destroying his garden, then blaming himself for mistaking a tortoise for a beehive. He's also very bucolic (dare I say 'cottagecore'?), with a flower garden of pansies, chrysanthemums, and gerberas, at least one fruit tree (peach), and his own beehives. And all this while dressed in a yellow tailcoat, striped vest, with fine grey pants and a cravat!

In these illustrations we are also treated to a Great Spotted Woodpecker, a brambling, a red squirrel with a blue neck kerchief, a common frog and a harvest mouse, a tree with a friendly face, and a range of woodland mushrooms.

In Harris's tale (which is much longer), Brer Rabbit doesn't aim to rescue his friend – he doesn't know what's in Brer Fox's sack and tricks him out of curiosity to find out. Brer Rabbit tells him there is a whole passel of folks trampling his watermelon patch and then when he approaches the sack realises it's Brer Terrapin.  Brer Fox isn't quite so cosy at home with his own beehives in Harris's tale, so Brer Rabbit finds a hornets' nest in the woods to put in the sack.*

Brer Rabbit and Brer Fox Go Fishing

I've identified this tale as a retelling of "Old Mr. Rabbit, He's a Good Fisherman" from Chapter XVI of "Legends of the Old Plantation" in Joel Chandler Harris's Uncle Remus: His Songs and His Sayings.*

In this story:

On a very hot day, all the animals were digging a patch of ground together so that they could plant some vegetables. As Brer Rabbit was rather small, he found it hard work...

He pretends to have a thorn in his paw so he can sit down for a while, then he sees a well nearby and thinks how refreshingly cool it would be to hop into the bucket and have a nap. When the bucket sinks down in the well "the rabbit, very frightened, wondered what to do next".

Luckily, Brer Fox was watching Brer Rabbit, "thinking he was up to some trick". When he sees Brer Rabbit disappear down the well he thinks he keeps his money down there. He calls out to Brer Rabbit, asking what he is doing. Brer Rabbit claims to be fishing and that there are "[d]ozens and dozens" of fish down there and invites Brer Fox to join him. 

Brer Rabbit seemed to be having a very good time and, as Brer Fox was fond of fish, he decided to join him.

When Brer Fox, heavier than Brer Rabbit, comes down the well, Brer Rabbit escapes up to the surface, shouting "Catch a nice bucketful of fish, Brer Fox!" and it is long time before someone helps Brer Fox out of the well.

All the animals are wearing workaday clothes in these illustrations, but Brer Rabbit's are poorer than the rest, being patched and worn, and Brer Tortoise has only his hat. Harris's tale talks only of Brer Rabbit not wanting the others to think he's lazy*, but Cloke's lends some sympathy to the character by pointing out how much smaller he is than the others, and therefore how much harder the work goes for him. Her watercolour illustrations beautifully capture the coolness of the well (crowned by an oak tree and brambles), and there is even a Common Frog peeping out of a crack below some ferns in the well wall.

Conclusion

This second collection of Brer Rabbit stories by Rene Cloke brings in two of the most well-known folktales of Brer Rabbit, in the form of the Tar-Baby and Brer Rabbit in the well, along with two other very interesting tales. Cloke manages to wed these stories with Englishness in a charming and appealing way.

Footnote

*Works of Joel Chandler Harris – Project Gutenberg