Rabbit Ears Presents
Three Little Pigs and the Three Billy Goats Gruff
told by
Holly Hunter
written by Joseph Jacobs and P. C. Asbjornsen
music by
Art Lande
audiobook/radio drama
ages 5-adult
I say ages 5 - adult because I have found that children younger than that generally do not listen to books on tape, but any given child may be an exception. I say adults may listen to it as well, because I am an adult and I enjoy a good short story/fable instead of static-y music when on a car ride.
Rabbit Ears Radio was established in 1985 to have veteran actors read timeless stories in the classic storytelling tradition, accompanied by music by veteran musicians. I thought that maybe Rabbit Ears Radio had disappeared, but their website says that they restructured in the 1990's and are still around. This explains why I used to hear it on the radio, but now I do not. Once they had a contract with Public Radio International, but that has expired.
http://www.rabbitears.com/
This CD contains two stories and about 11 tracks of background music and music inspired by the tales. Holly Hunter narrates and does all the voices on two classic tales - 3 little pigs, and Billy goats gruff. There is some tall tale telling and some good similes and metaphors - "as far as molasses is from turpentine" and such phrases. Hunter's Southern voice gives these a Georgia feel and a few times I wasn't sure what she said because she drops some letters in her narration. I guess I am unaccustomed to listening to such a deep Southern accent. The first words of the "Three Litttle Pigs" story were "Too poor to feed them". I had to listen to this three times before I could tell what she was saying at the beginning. The good news is that Hunter has developed a number of accents for her pigs and her goats and her trolls living under the bridge. These accents included cockney, valley girl and surfer dude. These were easier to understand and added to the story. I especially liked the middle billy goat's surfer dude accent. "Chill, wolf!"
As to the stories themselves, the billy goat story was pretty much as I remembered it. The three little pigs was longer and takes a few turns. [SPOILER]
One of my listeners said "That's not right. The wolf doesn't eat the pig". In this version the wolf does eat 2 out of 3 pigs.
Based on this CD I am not a Hunter fan, but I will look for more Rabbit Ears books on CD from my library for future car rides since they use a wide variety of performers.
