The Seven Voyages of Sinbad the Sailor - Softcover

Grade 5 Up. Written over five centuries ago, these tales have survived over time as storytellers' favorites. Yeoman's first-person narration pretty much follows the standard Richard Burton translation and leads readers through Sinbad's seven shipwrecks while introducing them to the amazing inhabitants of the islands on which the sailor is inevitably stranded: sea-stallions; the giant Roc and diamond-protecting serpents; Cyclops-like giants; cannibals (and live-burial customs); the Old Man of the Sea with his lethal legs; the generous king of Sarandib; and monsters and the flying "brethren of the demons." In each formulaic tale, Sinbad loses everything, flirts with death, and ends up richer, more generous, and maybe even a bit wiser than before. All of the stories provide numerous opportunities for retelling?and embellishing?and thus gloriously display the storyteller's craft. This version makes excellent classroom reading and Blake's expressive line drawings and watercolors, about half of which are reproduced in black and white, lend a subtle wit, pathos, and determination to the remarkable revelations of this man of mysterious wealth. An excellent introduction to the "1001" tales that are filled with adventure, luck, ingenuity, and allegory.?John Sigwald, Unger Memorial Library, Plainview, TX
Copyright 1997 Reed Business Information, Inc.

A splendiferous new presentation of an ageless yarn, replete with disasters, exotic lands, sumptuous palaces, fortunes lost and won back, and horrible monsters: ``We saw . . . a giant-like creature . . . his lower lip hung down like a camel's over his chest, his ears flopped over his shoulders like an elephant's, and his fingernails were like a lion's claws. I nearly passed out at the sight of him.'' Once Yeoman (also with Blake, The Singing Tortoise, 1994, etc.), through Sinbad, begins to weave his storyteller's spell, readers will want to plunge through right to the end (although a ribbon is bound into the book, should there be a need to mark a stopping point). The text has been edited for ease and fluency; the grandeur of older renditions has been preserved while long speeches and flowery rhetoric have been cut down. In a plethora of full-color and black-and-white watercolor wash illustrations that range from elaborate full-page compositions to tiny, almost abstract scribbles, Blake places gesticulating figures into situations that seem more exciting than dangerous. A fine design with a generous use of white space gives this volume the look and feel of the classic it is. (Folklore. 10-14) -- Copyright ©1997, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.