What's the Hurry, Fox?: And Other Animal Stories

Joyce Carol Thomas adapts a raft of folklore originally collected by Zora Neale Hurston in What's the Hurry, Fox? And Other Animal Stories, illus. by Brian Collier. The pourquoi tales told to Hurston by native Southerners (and compiled in Hurston's Every Tongue Got to Confess: Negro Folk-tales from the Gulf States) explain such mysteries as ""Why Donkey Has Long Ears"" or ""Why the Waves Have Whitecaps."" The folksy voice of a storyteller pervades each tale and will draw in young readers; Collier's full-bleed collages and watercolors are every bit as satisfying, as he endows humans and animals alike with distinctive character. (Apr.)