La oveja olvidadiza

Abstract

"Here is booklet #21 out of a series of twenty-seven. Each booklet of sixteen pages contains three fables. All three of the fables here are, I believe, created for this series. They are intended to foster "good citizenship" in young readers. I believe that they lack the ingenuity of traditional Aesopic fables. "La oveja olvidadiza" tells of a distracted young sheep that cannot learn her alphabet. She suffers the ridicule of others. A friend finally coaches her to remember the letters by things whose names they start. "Use your ingenuity to convert the negative into positive." "El Tucán desconsiderado" tells of a creative tucan who is also careless. Tucan elders, who wear wonderful pince-nez eyeglasses on 11, warn him that knocking fruit and leaves carelessly off of trees will leave him someday hungry. He soon faces an empty tree and is hungry. Now he can do nothing about it. "Take care of everything around you and you will be able to keep enjoying it." "El Cachalote ingrato" tells of a sperm whale that loves long floating siestas. The problem is that these siestas block out sunlight from fish below that need it, at least to warm their water. Appeals to get him to move fail. So do attempts to move him. The angry goldfish on 16 is another excellent artistic echo of the text! Then one day during the sperm whale's nap some of his back stays above water and gets sunburned. The fish tells him that, if he had slept in his own place, this pain would not have happened. "Respect the place and the rights of others." There is a tear on 9-10."