This book is a collection of stories told by Uncle Remus. The forward of the book explains that when the stories were first published by Joel Chandler Harris in the late 1800s. In those books Uncle Remus was an obedient slave who told these stories as a form of entertainment to the white slave owner's child. The cultural thought those is that Brer Rabbit was in fact a personification of a slave and Brer Fox whom he often tricks is a slave owner. In this collection, Lester write Uncle Remus, the storyteller, to be neither a slave nor a black person but a voice who is retelling the stories. It is felt that they are an important part of black culture and history.
This book would work well when chosen stories are pre-selected for either reading groups or independent reading that would lend themselves well to reading responses. Because many of the stories have a central character but do not need to be read in order students can teach each other about the story that they read and then they can come up with a character profile of Brer Rabbit from the retold stories.
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