The Crane Wife — Ena Keo

Gr 1-2--This is a terse, easy-to-read version of the classic tale. Sachi finds a sick crane, takes it home, and cares for it. When it flies away, a woman appears. She weaves silk for Sachi but asks that he not look at her when she is weaving. When the man breaks this promise, she turns back into a crane and flies away. The pedestrian narrative consists of simple sentences with few adjectives or adverbs to embellish the tale. The moral, Always keep your promises, is tacked on at the end as an obvious lesson. As mundane as this retelling is, the illustrations are colorful and appealing. They consist of full-page drawings placed mainly on the right-hand page facing a paragraph of large-print text on the left. Even though a picture-book version of this folktale is not readily available, reading aloud the five-page story in Rafe Martin's Mysterious Tales of Japan (Putnam, 1996) would be a more satisfying way to appreciate this fine Japanese folktale than using this colorless retelling.--Blair Christolon, Prince William Public Library System, Manassas, VA