Tar Baby and Other Rhymes of Uncle Remus

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The Tar Baby has been one of the most beloved characters in all of American children's literature. Originally published in 1904 and featuring the art of acclaimed illustrators A. B. Frost and E. W. Kimball, the stories in this edition are told all in rhyme. With illustrations by A. B. Frost and E. W. Kimball.
    Genres

200 pages, Paperback

First published January 1,1904

About the author

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Joel Chandler Harris was an American journalist born in Eatonton, Georgia who wrote the Uncle Remus stories, including Uncle Remus; His Songs and His Sayings, The Folk-Lore of the Old Plantation, (1880), Nights with Uncle Remus (1881 & 1882), Uncle Remus and His Friends (1892), and Uncle Remus and the Little Boy (1905).

The stories, based on the African-American oral storytelling tradition, were revolutionary in their use of dialect and in featuring a trickster hero called Br'er ("Brother") Rabbit, who uses his wits against adversity, though his efforts do not always succeed. The frog is the trickster character in traditional tales in Central and Southern Africa. The stories, which began appearing in the Atlanta Constitution in 1879, were popular among both Black and White readers in the North and South, not least because they presented an idealized view of race relations soon after the Civil War. The first published Brer Rabbit stories were written by President Theodore Roosevelt's uncle, Robert Roosevelt.


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July 15,2025
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This was an extremely interesting book.

It served as the fundamental basis for Disney's Song of the South.

Regardless of our personal opinions about that movie, I must give Disney due credit for having the creativity and courage to bring to the screen a movie that was inspired by African American folktales from the 1940s.

I have long been desiring to read the very book or set of tales upon which the movie was based.

However, I was not exactly thrilled with the wording in the book.

This had nothing to do with the use of vernacular, in fact, I actually appreciate that the vernacular was preserved.

But there are certain words in 2024 that cause me to have a bit of a twitch.

I constantly had to remind myself that the words I had an issue with were not being used in the same context or with the same connotations as they might be today.

Overall, despite this small quirk, the book still holds a great deal of value and interest.

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