Creighton University

This is the Hungarian version of "The Country Mouse and the City Mouse: A Tale of Tolerance" done by Reader's Digest Young Families in 2006.  Rarely have I seen as exact a match of two books in different languages.  The editors were even careful on three different pages to switch English titles like the dog Rufus to the good Hungarian Rufusz.  As I wrote of the original, it is a twenty-page children's picture book that extends onto its back endpaper with tips for parents, including strategies, discussion questions, and activities that grow out of the story.  The version of TMCM offered here has several creative twists.  Henry seems to show up at Emma's country door with a large gift, but I cannot find out anything more about it.  They both enjoy the country meal.  Emma has forgotten about picking berries, and so Henry offers to drive them both to town for dessert.  His first suggestion was to ""run to the corner store and get us something sweet,"" and Emma had to let him know that in the country people grow all their food.  They drive to the city in a mouse-sized sportscar.  ""Sweet Treats"" is right next to Henry's townhouse, with a dessert cart that invites the mice to a feast!  They can sneak in under the front door.  Pierre, the cook's cat, soon attacks and catches Emma by the tail; Henry has to grab Pierre's whiskers to get Pierre to free his paw from Emma's tail.  They run out the back door past Rufus the dog.  Henry asks if the dessert was not wonderful, and Emma agrees but asks if was worth all that danger.  City life with its excitement is not for her.  Henry drives Emma home and promises that he will come again next autumn.  The next evening Henry goes out dancing in the city, while Emma settles in at her country home, enjoying turnip and cabbage stew with a nice cup of tea.  It seems that tolerance consists in allowing each his or her own.

This is the Hungarian version of "The Emperor's New Clothes."  One image stands out immediately after all the smiling people, including the Emperor and the two culprits.  I presume that it is the Emperor's chief advisor who looks aghast as he faces us readers.  Soon the Emperor himself has an amazed look on his face.  This version opts to show the "naked" Emperor wearing full length underwear.  The picture repeated on the title-page is one of the best: only the Emperor, a mother, and her child are pictured, and the child is pointing at him with excitement.  The last image seems to have him moving on stoically while three commoners laugh and point at him.  I will look for the English-language version.