Rating: ***** 5 stars

Michael Harrison and Christopher Stuart-Clark, illustrated by Paul Dainton et al.,
The Oxford Treasury of World Stories.
Oxford University Press, 2000

This is a rich collection of twenty-three stories from every continent and many countries. Some of the stories or their protagonists will be well-known, such as Anansi the Spider, the Tomten, Robin Hood, and the Monkey King from China. Others are less familiar, or they are adaptations or variations of traditional tales. A very useful feature of the book consists of four pages at the back which contain a note on the origin and background to each story, and an explanation of where and why the authors may, in some instances, have veered slightly from well-known versions of the tales. The preoccupations and vulnerability of human beings, wherever they live, are reflected in the stories which tell of love and longing, greed and covetousness, bravery and nobility of spirit. The tempo of the retellings varies to suit the theme, but each has an immediacy and an ability to engage the listener and to reflect the oral traditions within which many of the tales have originated.

The work of six different artists is used throughout the book. Almost every page is illustrated in full colour with pictures that range from full page to vignettes. Styles and media vary greatly and have been chosen well to suit the text which they accompany. My only quibble about this fine volume is that the artists are not credited on the title page or in the notes on each story but listed at the very end with page numbers only.

Valerie Coghlan