One Voice, Please: Tales of Truth and Trickery

by Sam McBratney

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Genres: Short Stories, Childrens, Nonfiction

176 pages, Hardcover

Published December 5, 2005

About the author

The 1943 born Northern Ireland native started writing children's books when he was a teacher in his thirties, with the aim of helping out students who had trouble reading. But he continued writing for a more-personal reason: "the act of imagining simply makes me feel good," he says. The fifty-seventh book of Sam McBratney's career, and his first book with Candlewick Press, was the much-loved GUESS HOW MUCH I LOVE YOU, which has sold an astonishing 15 million copies worldwide, and is available in 37 languages. "This is not the sort of thing you expect when most of your books have been remaindered," the author admits. "But, as the frog trapped in the milk discovered, if you keep going, sometimes you find yourself walking on cream cheese."

Where does Sam McBratney get his inspiration? "I told my children stories when they were young," he says, "so when I write I try to think of what they would have liked." But there may be another source guiding his writing as well. The author's father--who worked as a type compositor with the BELFAST TELEGRAPH, and whose favorite books were westerns--is the person Sam McBratney credits for giving him his love of the English language. "Most of my picture books--GUESS HOW MUCH I LOVE YOU, THE DARK AT THE TOP OF THE STAIRS, JUST ONE!, and JUST YOU AND ME--explore the relationship between a big one and a wee one," the author notes. "The big one is not called the father in the stories, but that's what he is. Although my dad died before I became a writer, the father in my stories has a voice and a presence that he would have recognized and understood."

In addition to authoring many books for children, Sam McBratney wrote radio plays for adults and a prize-winning collection of short stories. He received a degree in history and political science from Trinity College, Dublin, and worked for many years as a teacher.

Reviews

[Sandy · Rating 4 out of 5]

Many readers may recognize Sam McBratney as the author of beloved picture books, including my own personal favorite Guess How Much I Love You. Now, McBratney has put together a collection of short stories for older readers under the title One Voice, Please. In the books introduction, McBratney explains how he once heard this phrase silence a crowded pub so that one man could share a story with the entire crowd. This is a fitting title, given the nature of the book's collection of tales. Many of these fables will be familiar to readers, including the story of the ion and the mouse, and the Pied Piper of Hamlin. However, most of these stories were unfamiliar to me. This pleasant combination of the familiar and the unfamiliar made the transition from story to story smooth and comforting. Each tale is a sort of fable with a lesson or moral at the end, but the collection is not overly moralistic, preachy, or didactic. The writing is smooth and pleasant, and as indicated by the subtitle, would be perfectly suited to be reading aloud.

The stick-like illustrations found within the text are the work of another well-known picture book author/illustrator, Russel Ayto. The sketches are an edgy yet whimsical accompaniment to this smooth text. This book is truly a good transitional book, with aspects that will be greatly appreciated by readers ranging from preschoolers who are being read to, to grade schoolers looking for a simple, comforting text, to the adults who share this book with their children.

My only criticism is the fact that while this collection contains stories from all over the world, no note is ever made of the stories' origins. Granted, it is somewhat refreshing to not have multiculturalism slammed down our throats in an obvious way, and this lack of information almost makes the stories blend together a bit more seamlessly. The stories come together under the category of "story" rather than under the guise of "world cultures" - which is not necessarily a bad thing. However, it may have been nice to at least have a note or appendix at the end of the text with this information so that readers can easily investigate a story or its culture more thoroughly should they desire.

[Lindsay · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is a collection of very short stories; most are only one or two pages in length. The stories are folktales, morals, and oral stories from around the world. What I really liked about this collection was the variety of stories and that they were short. I feel that this is a good way to ease children into the folktale genre since many folktales tend to be lengthier. These stories also can be used as a tool to encourage children to tell what they think the stories mean. Asking children questions helps build their narrative skills.

It's definitely the kind of book that teachers could read a little out of each day, or maybe parents/caregivers could read at bedtime.

I've added the tag story time to this book to remind me that I could adapt some of the tales for Spanish/bilingual story time. Story time is aimed at ages three to six, but my audience is much more varied in age than those who attend the English toddlers and pre-school story times at the library. Some of the stories have the potential to be used for a shadow puppet show. My creativity has definitely been let loose with this collection. :-)

[Cindi · Rating 3 out of 5]

One to two page read alouds for kids. My daughter read a few of these aloud while we were waiting in the car at a drive through. They are funny and interesting to listen to. A good length for kids to read to other kids. I'd like my kids to practice their read-aloud skills too!

Update: We're reading this some at night. I like the short stories with a message, but some of them aren't so great. When I ask, "What did you think about that one?" it's about 30/70, didn't like/like. It does give the opportunity to ask questions about honesty and to talk about why or why not we didn't like it. Some stories they have heard before so they can relate to them even better.

I'm not totally sure I'd recommend it but I find with a lot of books that I'm not necessarily entertained by them when my kids are.

One nice thing is that there are tales from all over the world, so there are many different ideas/philosophies. There are stories that are funny, others that are tragic, some with a definite message that we agree with and others that we want to dissect and pull apart.

[Joy Lane · Rating 4 out of 5]

There aren't many of these written, but I 'm glad to be aware of this one.
Many very short stories and fables, good for read aloud (each about 2 or 3 minutes)
I also love the small illustrations

[Ashley Adams · Rating 3 out of 5]

A collection of extremely short folktales from around the world. Cute, but not particularly special.

[Dolly · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book offers numerous short stories, many of which are classic tales we've heard or read before. Several of the tales are set in Ireland, but many are religous parables and there's even a greek myth.

The stories are very short, many just a page or two in length (and the book is rather small). Some even seem a bit too condensed, but it's nice to have an option to tell just one story that only takes a minute or two to read.

Overall, the stories are very fun to read aloud and we really enjoyed reading this book together. We typically only read a couple of stories each night, so we could savor the myriad stories all the more.

[Cary · Rating 2 out of 5]

This is a collection of very short stories (like Stone Soup and The blind men who feel the Elephant). They are short and that is about their only redeeming quality. I was thinking as I started that I wished I had found this when my children were younger to read as bedtime stories but I'm not sure I would even do that after reading them. It is a tiny book with 167 pages that I took 4 days to read because I just didn't care... I continued reading cause I couldn't beleive that I wouldn't like it!

[Kristy · Rating 4 out of 5]

A collection of page long stories, parables, and morality tales. McBratney gives a short one or two sentence intro to many of them, leaving you with a delightful impression of a narrator. Vivid, poignant writing.

[Natalie Francis · Rating 3 out of 5]

I thought this book was fairly good. I enjoyed reading the short stories but wish my daughter would have been a little older to understand them. I would recommend this to anyone with elementary age children. It is a clean, fun read-aloud book.

[Rachel]

I started reading this to my kids and enjoyed it, but decided they would enjoy it better in a year or three.

[Jill · Rating 4 out of 5]

We all liked it. The kids looked forward to reading it and it was fun to have new stories every night. Some of them were a little strange, but overall a good read aloud book.

[Marla · Rating 3 out of 5]

Maine Student Book Award 2009-2010

[Samantha · Rating 2 out of 5]

MSBA Nominee 2009-2010

I enjoyed this book because I really like fairy tales and folklore. I'm not really sure if kids will.

[R.K. Goff · Rating 4 out of 5]

I adore collection of short stories or fables, and this is just my cup of tea. They were interesting and well written, and most of them were new. All of them were interesting.

[Lisa Smith · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.5 stars. Really short little parables and fables. I was surprised it held Owen's interest, but it did.

[Hannah · Rating 3 out of 5]

Funny little short stories.

[Terry]

Readers will find humor and wisdom in these short stories. Go to the Reading Tub for the review.