Gr 4-6-Thomas retells six supernatural folktales selected from Hurston's Every Tongue Got to Confess (HarperCollins, 2001). The subject matter is sufficiently scary to give young readers a thrill, and Jenkins's spooky black-and-white paintings of skeletons, skulls, arrogant men, eerie cats, and nighttime swirls of fog perfectly set the stage for shivers. Thomas omits most of the dialect and supplies missing motivation. In "The Witch Who Could Slip off Her Skin," the reteller adds silly explanatory paragraphs telling why this witch would "ride" people who had done her wrong. She eliminates the character of "Marster" from "Big Sixteen," here called "Big, Bad Sixteen." "Bill, the Talking Mule," a tale in which a farmer is frightened when his animals suddenly speak to him, retains all of the surprise hilarity of the original. An adapter's note doesn't explain the changes so much as review the content. Although mostly faithful to Hurston's tales, the retellings read like fragments from some larger work that begin in the middle and end abruptly, a fact that may trouble readers who expect more shape to a story. However, this volume introduces a small part of the huge body of literature collected in the rural South in the 1920s and the person who helped put words to paper.-Susan Hepler, Burgundy Farm Country Day School, Alexandria, VA (c) Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.

(Intermediate) These adaptations bring six of Hurston's tales to a younger audience. In a note, Thomas asks readers, ""Why do you suppose that in The Skull Talks Back somebody's always running?"" There will be little doubt as to the answer to her question when children meet such memorable characters as Big Sixteen, welcome in neither heaven nor hell, or the fearsome High Walker, who could walk into a graveyard and command, ""Rise up, Bloody Bones, and shake yourself."" Thomas sacrifices none of the oral qualities of the original collections' language: ""Way out in the woods lived a witch woman who could get out of her skin, I mean step right out of her skin and go ride people she didn't like."" (For another version of ""The Witch Who Could Slip Off Her Skin,"" see the Virginia Hamilton picture book reviewed on page 567.) Jenkins's haunting illustrations vary from representational art (in a portrait of Hurston that accompanies a biographical sketch of the folklorist) to surreal collages. Rich in both language and art, this collection is a fitting tribute to Hurston's work. (c) Copyright 2010. The Horn Book, Inc., a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted. All rights reserved.

A talking mule, a talking skull, a witch who slips her skin, and a man so powerful that he's not admitted to heaven or hell star in this appealing but flawed companion to What's The Hurry, Fox? and Other Animal Stories (p. 331), illustrated by Bryan Collier. Jenkins's semi-abstract, black-and-white scenes of ghosts and bones add eerie atmosphere to the six folktales; Thomas has recast Hurston's original, thick dialect into a modern idiom, while nicely preserving that country flavor: "No, Pa, that mule's done gone to talking, I tell you. I ain't going." But some of the stories are only fragments, and the collection as a whole is jumbled; a boaster named High Walker dies in one tale, but isn't introduced until a later one, and Thomas's introduction has, oddly, been placed at the end. Hurston's work merits a less clumsy introduction to young readers, and Mary Lyon's Raw Head, Bloody Bones (1991) is only one of many similar folktale gatherings with a higher chill factor. (source notes) (Folktales. 8-10) Copyright ©Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.

Gr. 4-7. Hurston was a landmark writer and collector of black folklore in the 1930s rural South, but her stories, written in heavy dialect, are not accessible to kids. Using a direct style that loses none of the colloquial immediacy of the original voices, Thomas has done a great job of retelling six of Hurston's supernatural tales, and Jenkins' monochromatic collages and silhouettes capture the delicious, shivery glow of skeletons and graveyards. Thomas' retelling about "the witch who could slip off her skin" is not as dramatic as Virginia Hamilton's in Wee Winnie Witch's Skinny 0 BKL Je 1 & 15 04, but the tales in this small, spacious collection will still be favorites with storytellers. Best of all is "Big Bad Sixteen" about a man so strong that he kills the devil. When the man dies, he can't enter either heaven or hell, so he returns to Earth as the scary jack-o-lantern. Thomas provides brief, lively notes at the end. Let's hope she'll bring more of Hurston's work to thrill young readers. --Hazel Rochman Copyright 2004 Booklist