The Children's Aesop

Abstract

This printing of a delightful book is almost exactly the same as a book already in the collection in the same year. The differences include these: not Caroline House but Boyds Mills Press is on the title-page; the list price is not $11.95 but $14.95 (in less than a year!); it lists printings on the verso of its title-page and announces this as the second printing; it adds Distributed by St. Martin's Press on the same verso; and it came packaged with an audio cassette. As I wrote of the first printing, this book is well done! Twenty-eight fables generally given two pages apiece for the tale and the picture, with a moral clearly boxed in a different color at the end. Well told, especially for children, with morals that make sense, and razzle-dazzle illustrations. The fables with the best tellings are FC, The Fox and the Goat, GB, and MSA. The best illustrations include the great fox pictured on the cover with the humanoid arm reaching for the grapes, FC, and the first picture for MSA. Several stories are differently told: the picky heron becomes a flamingo; the father using a bundle of sticks is going on a trip; the boy shouting Wolf wants company, not a laugh; the gnat kicks the bull's horn--without effect--before he leaves; the mother cat between the sow and the eagle dies, and they discover her deceit and are reconciled; and the endangered traveler, asked what the bear said, tells the other traveller Next time you see him, ask him yourself. One example of a good moral is that for WL: Those who are out to hurt you will use any excuse. A fine book.