Ghostly Tales of Japan

By: Rafe Martin

Narrated by: Rafe Martin

Length: 1 hr and 15 mins

Publisher's Summary

Full of eerie elegance and the underlying mysterious spirit of Japanese culture, these four Japanese ghost stories are performed by award-winning author and storyteller Rafe Martin in his engaging and inimitable style. The collection begins with "The Boy Who Drew Cats", a tale about the power of faith in one's own creativity, and continues with "Kogi", a dream vision in which the listener becomes a whale. The other two stories are "Urashima Taro", a story about a character we might know better as Rip Van Winkle, and "Ho-ichi the Earless", a truly classic hero's adventure story.

(P) and ©1989 Yellow Moon Press, All Rights Reserved

Critic Reviews

• Winner of 1990 Parents' Choice Gold Award.

"Rafe Martin's convincing delivery and excellent timing cast listeners under the spell of Japan in these four unusual tales." (Booklist)

Great stories...

The stories are great, and even his way of telling it is fine (perfect for very young children, humorous for the rest of us). Sadly, the music in the background gets way too loud at points, and I had to listen again to try to make out the words of the tale over the sounds. Much as I love the tales, I wouldn't recommend this audiobook.

OK, but...

...I think Rafe Martin's way of performing is too exagerrated, even for his target audience children. Wouldn't really recommend it.

Terrible audio quality

I can't believe this was passable. The audio quality goes up and down a LOT with a great deal of dead air hissing.

Way Too Exagerated For Me

First the good part, the stories were lovely and well written. This is one audiobook I wish I had read and not listened to. Even if it was meant for children, I think it was meant more as a play and not something you can listen to without the occupying ridiculous gestures. With those exaggerated gestures to go with his over the top tones it would have been charming. But with just his voice shrieking in my ear I was distracted and agitated. Also the beginning and ending of almost every story was lost in the music, which was also distracting. In the end I think it is the wrong recording for an audiobook, but I would take children to see it on stage.

scary stories great for kids

I really enjoyed the stories and the performance but the music that introduced each new story was way to loud and drowned out the narrator's voice.

The Stories are good but...

If you could sum up Ghostly Tales of Japan in three words, what would they be?

interesting Ancient haunting

What other book might you compare Ghostly Tales of Japan to and why?

Chinese Tales, In Ghostly Japan and early Poe's work.
The work is worn and rough in places. This might be do to the retelling of tails. They are good though and can compare with Poe when he was starting. Their is no intense moments with blood every wear, but a good ghost/mild horror story.
The stories are in the same vain as Chinese Tales and In Ghostly Japan. Slow and with a warning to look out for Yokai everywhere (The ever present all is not as it seems tails.)

Who would you have cast as narrator instead of Rafe Martin?

Any one

If you were to make a film of this book, what would be the tag line be?

In the shadows they leark

Any additional comments?

The Tales are good and can stand the test of time. While some are transparent others are not. The use of the background music is atrocious it covers the start of the story so you can not hear it as well as the ends. If you are interested in this kind of story from the region it is worth listing to.