The Whole Package

By DAPHNE LEE 

From Tots to Teens, StarMag
 

I HAVE just spent a pleasurable couple of weeks reading five collections of folktales, three of them locally published works. 

At a recent colloquim on children's literature, held at University Malaya, several speakers lamented the fact that Malaysian children are unfamiliar with local folktales and legends, Instead, fairytales like Cinderella and Sleeping Beauty are often named as favourites -- and Disney's sanitised, saccharine versions at that! 

I had a Eurocentric upbringing, in terms of literature, and I remember my father reading to me tales by Hans Christian Andersen and the Brothers Grimm. There was a book that I particularly loved -- small and fat, with dark crimson clothbound covers, miniscule font, and no pictures. I remember especially loving the story of Snow White and Rose Red, and so it must have been a Grimm collection. I can remember how the book felt in my hands, and how it smelt deliciously dusty. 

Although I recall being introduced to Sang Kanchil when I started school, I don't remember what form the stories took - whether I was told about the mousedeer or if I read about him in a book. 

Their look, feel and smell are a big part of my memories of a great many books I read and loved as a child. This is why I think it's important that publishers of local children's literature pay attention to the way a book is packaged. 

The text is important of course, but so are the illustrations. Why include pictures at all unless they are of the best quality and best suited for the stories they are illustrating? The three local collections I recently enjoyed comprise well-written versions of local and Asian folktales, but the illustrations could be a lot better.

Orang Asli Animal Tales (Center for Orang Asli Concerns, 204 pages, ISBN: 978-9834324858), by Lim Boo Liat (edited by Jefri Dylan Ong) is actually quite a lovely book, the stories printed on smooth, creamy paper in dark green font, and the cover, a thick, textured cream-coloured card with a simple illustration of a mousedeer, and bamboo plants. 

The title page of each tale shows a small detailed sketch of the featured animal (the Orang Asli have tales to explain the habits and appearance of every animal in their forest homeland). Each story ends with a sketch of a forest plant. These drawings are by Pandak Basri, an Orang Asli artist. 

The book ends with a detailed glossary, inclusive of scientific names and descriptions, of the animals that appear in the collection. This glossary is illustrated with highly realistic drawings by M. W. F Tweedie, taken from The Wild Animals of Malaya and Singapore by Lord Medway. 

I think Tweedie and Pandak Basri's animal drawings would have sufficed for this collection. However, each tale also features at least one full-page illustration, by Pandak Basri, of a scene from the story. Unfortunately, these drawings are quite uneven in quality. The sketches of forest flora are full of raw energy, and successfully convey the wildness of the stories' settings, but the artist's rough impressions of humans and animals are less effective. The amateurish quality of these drawings marr the look of the book and prevent it from being the wholly satisfying experience it could be. 

This is also the problem with two collections by Tutu Dutta-Yean. Eight Fortunes of the Qilin (MPH Publishing, 124 pages, ISBN: 978-9675222313) and Eight Jewels of the Phoenix (MPH Publishing, 137 pages, ISBN: 978-9675222320) comprise a total of 16 folktales, mostly from Asia -- according to the author, the Central American and North American stories were added to give the books wider appeal, but I feel that the books lack focus because of their inclusion. 

Dutta-Yean is a good storyteller, with a clear and uncluttered narrative style. Her efforts as an illustrator are also admirable as it seems to me that not many would have the stamina and determination needed to re-tell 16 stories as well as illustrate them. However, Dutta-Yean is, by her own admission, an amateur artist and should not have been chosen to illustrate these collections. I feel her publishers should have tried to find a more suitable illustrator for Dutta-Yean's stories. They could have also designed more attractive covers for the books.  

Finally, two books published in 2005 by Viking Australia: Chinese Fairytales (192 pages, ISBN: 978-0670072606) and Chinese Myths (192 pages, 978-0670072613), both edited by Mei Lan Frame, are handsomely bound in blue and red respectively. They have colourful jackets with artwork by Leuyen Pham, who is also responsible for the books' beautiful ink illustrations. These are books where the text and images are on equal footing. They complement each other, and combine to deliver an exciting and fascinating experience. I trust it won't be too long before local publishers serve compilations of Malaysian stories that also gladden our hearts in every way.