The Boy Who Cried Wolf!

Gr 1–4—These two fables are the long awaited follow up to ASL Tales' fairy tales Rapunzel and The Princess and the Pea (ASL Tales, 2008). The retellings emphasize modern emotional content of the characters and are told in succinct sentences, full of action. The boy who cried wolf is bored. The hare is an attention-seeker. Kids will connect with these types, empathize, and learn from their mistakes. While Tortoise has a digital, more comic style, with a richer palette than the delicate watercolor feel of Boy Who Cried Wolf, both are stylistically appropriate and effective. In addition to originally illustrated fables, these paperbacks feature a DVD of a live-action ASL retelling by renowned storytellers. Students can view it in ASL only, with audio/captions only, or combined. Most interestingly, there are about 20 ASL clues: clips that take viewers through a sentence and break it down slo-mo into segments, with captioned explanations of why it is signed that way. Each DVD also has a glossary of about 25 ASL words, which can be previewed. The audio is available in 11 world languages, including Mandarin and Spanish. If that is not enough, on the ASL tales website, teachers can access the action script of the ASL which is a timed breakdown of the English translation of each ASL syntactical structure. Students quickly see that ASL is a fluid, expressive language, made up of words, depictions, facial expressions, and actions. Highly engaging ASL storytelling, recommended for all levels learning this rich visual language.—Sara Lissa Paulson, The American Sign Language and English Lower School, New York City