The six fools / collected by Zora Neale Hurston ; adapted by Joyce Carol Thomas ; illustrated by Ann Tanksley.

Enhanced descriptions from Syndetics:

THE SIX FOOLS Zora Neale Hurston Who's the biggest fool? Is it the girl who floods her basement with cider, the man who jumps into his pants, the farmer who feeds his cow on the roof, or the woman who tries to fill her wheelbarrow with sunshine? Based on a story collected by Zora Neale Hurston during her travels in 1930s Gulf States, The Six Fools is an outrageously funny tale about a dashing young man who finds foolish folks aplenty and true love!

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Publishers Weekly Review

Though Zora Neale Hurston's collection of southern folklore (from which this tale comes) was originally published more than 75 years ago, Thomas's (Brown Honey in Broomwheat Tea) adaptation here keeps the humor fresh and lively. Newcomer Tanksley's inspired illustrations, meanwhile, evoke the story's time period and culture. The narrative opens as "a dashing young man" proposes to a young woman who, when fetching cider to celebrate, starts daydreaming about what she'd name her firstborn and completely forgets about her fiance. Her parents soon join her in her reverie. When the young man finds them sitting in a pool of flowing cider he declares: "I'm going traveling for a year, and if I find three fools as big as you, I'll come back and we'll get married." Tanksley uses fine ink lines to trace her wide-eyed characters in comical poses. Radiant pinks, purples and oranges fill the paintings with warmth, while geometric patterns, such as rows of circular cider kegs and square windows, provide a stabilizing counterbalance to such whimsical images as a man trying to pull his cow onto the barn roof. Spot and panel illustrations vary the pacing, while both the fianc?'s departure and return-after discovering three more fools ("Well, well, w-e-l-l... I might as well go back and get married")-warrant full-bleed spreads. A Caribbean expression, "By that time I left" signals the story's end. Tanksley's vibrant artwork ensures that this bighearted tall tale will find a well-deserved new audience. Ages 6-10. (Jan.) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved

School Library Journal Review

Gr 1-5-A fellow courts a girl, and they agree to marry. Sadly, she and her family are such fools that the young man takes off: "-you are the three biggest fools that I ever laid eyes on. I'm going traveling for a year, and if I find three fools as big as you, I'll come back and we'll get married." Does he find them? Of course. This adaptation of the "fool" story from Hurston's Every Tongue Got to Confess (HarperCollins, 2001) is light and adept. Though Thomas doesn't describe the changes she's made, comparison with the original shows that she's added a small amount of narrative detail and dialogue, hardly altering and not cutting anything from the original. The result is wonderful in voice: rich, hilarious, and satisfying. Tanksley's oil monoprints done in a folk-art style set the story in Hurston's 1920s-'30s with humor and vibrant color in a wide-ranging palette. The combination of single-page, three-fourths-page spread, and spot illustrations, with text varying black on white or white on color, gives a sense of visual movement to the story. Short notes at the end (including a source note and an explanation of the unusual but traditional ending phrase) complete this delightful picture book, perfect for reading aloud and for any folktale shelf. Pair it with Christopher Myers's Lies and Other Tall Tales (HarperCollins, 2005) for a Hurston Renaissance.-Nina Lindsay, Oakland Public Library, CA (c) Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.

Booklist Review

PreS-Gr. 2. Stories about foolish adults make kids laugh and feel superior, and Thomas' adaptation, from Hurston's 1930s folklore collection Every Tongue Got to Confess,0 is a good example. 0 A young man thinks his fiancee and her parents are the biggest fools he has ever laid eyes on--until he searches the world and finds fools everywhere: a man jumping up in the air to get into his trousers, a woman trying to haul sunshine into her kitchen in a wheelbarrow, and more. The characters, depicted with rolling eyes and exaggerated gestures, are not nearly as appealing as those created by Christopher Myers for Hurston's Lies and Other Tall Tales0 (2005), but children will still love the uproar and the nonsense. Pair this with one of the many African trickster tales or with Yiddish stories about the fools of Chelm, such as Eric Kimmel's Jar of Fools0 (2000) and Steve Sanfield's Feather Merchants and Other Tales of the Fools of Chelm0 (1991). --Hazel Rochman Copyright 2006 Booklist

Kirkus Book Review

Richly hued oil monoprints in a childlike style give this Caribbean-flavored variant on "The Three Sillies" a rural African-American setting. Collected by Hurston from a West Indian immigrant, the tale as originally published (in Every Tongue Got To Confess, 2001) features a barrel of beer in the basement; aside from changing that to cider and smoothing out some of the language, Thomas has left it as transcribed. The story is very close to European versions, except that it closes with a woman trying to haul sunshine into her kitchen in a wheelbarrow, followed by an unusual tagline from the storyteller: "By that time I left"--for which Tanksley supplies a closing view of the newlyweds departing on a cruise ship. Whatever its trappings, the tale remains one of the drollest folktales around, and even young readers already familiar with it will be heartily amused by this lively American rendition. (Picture book/folktale. 6-9) Copyright ©Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.