[.ca] Snake Prince And Other Stories Burmese Folk Tales (ISBN 1566563135)

Listen, Oh My Children...:
THE SNAKE PRINCE is not a book of fairy tales for children, but an enjoyable, serious collection for the adult reader. The stories are spellbinding in themselves; in addition, Edna Ledgard has written a Preface in which she tells of her childhood in Burma in the 1930s when her interest in the traditional Burmese folk tale was whetted. She follows this with a fascinating narrative of the history of Burma and the life of the Burmese people before World War II. To read Edna Ledgard's beautiful prose is pure pleasure: it is clear and lyrical, with brilliant images that bring Burma and its people to the reader's eyes as vividly as a painting. "High in the jungle trees, shrieks of magpie and lorikeet and the chatterings of the over-excited monkeys cease at last. Instead, night peepers, crickets, and an owl are heard, and in the distance, the cry of a lonely jackal. Now, at last, perched cross-legged on a platform in the center of the village, the old storyteller begins: "Listen, oh my children...."

Enchanting look at a distant culture:
I bought this book for review in a college Southeast Asia class. Having been a fan of Grimm's fairy tales and stories of that type, I found a lot of these retellings familiar in plot. However, the characterizations and behaviors, as well as the settings, provided a distinctively Burmese flavor to the universal stories. With a large historical and cultural overview to start it off, this book provided a good general idea of Southeast Asian culture within and easily understandable and entertaining framework.