Barbara's Reviews > An Illustrated Collection of Nordic Animal Tales

Twenty-six interlocking folktales from Finland offer amusement as well as life lessons in this lovely collection featuring Bear, Wolf, and Fox. In many of them Fox gets away with his trickery, avoiding work, cheating his friends, and eating more than his fill of food. These traditional tales are all short, accessible, and provide insight into Nordic culture as well as human behavior through the behavior of the animals in and around Metsola farm. The actions of Hen, Rooster, and Hare add to the delights of reading these positively addictive, well-told tales as do the illustrations, created with watercolor and ink pen. The details in those smaller sketches and larger artwork are impressive in their ability to capture the animal characters' personalities. While amused by Fox's antics and trickery, readers will surely hope that he eventually learns his lesson or faces some sort of comeuppance. The book is well designed and even had a ribbon to mark a reader's place in it.