Aesop's Fables

September 1, 1988
These 10 fables are given a fresh treatment in rhyme, and a new look by Rayevsky. His foxes, bears, lions and other animals appear in medieval and Shakespearean capes, jerkins and plumed hats, all in deep reds, subtle browns and greens. The verses are not always successful, often indulging in inverted syntax to rhyme, and uneven metrics. But phrasing is often clever, and humor is everywhere. In true Aesopian fashion, the morals are soundly thumped at the end: mouse and lion awkwardly learn, ``Yes, sometimes the weak and sometimes the strong/ Must help each other to save right from wrong.'' The boy who cried wolf is more snappily told, ``Please learn your lesson/ Young man and beware:/ Never cry `Wolf!'/ When the wolf isn't there.'' Ages 4-7.

November 1, 2013
Is there any way to make a collection of Aesop's fables feel fresh? Yes--turn it into a calendar. The 90-degree rotation of the opening combines with the horizontal layout of the 12 fables to make the book look like a calendar; though there are no dates or monthly labels, the palette and mood of the fables modulate seasonally as they progress. The unusual format (akin to Tops and Bottoms by Janet Stevens, 1995) is a creative way to present these moralistic tales. The white-bordered paintings are placed on the top page; the story faces it on the bottom page, which is dotted with spot art that adds surrealistic accents. For example, in "The Cockerel and the Jewel," a hungry rooster wears a bib and holds a fork as it eyes a large pearl ring. The spot art below shows three white plates holding jewelry, a fork twining a necklace spaghettilike around its tines next to one of them. The last line is: "I'd much rather have found a grain of corn to eat than all the jewels in the world," and indeed, that necklace does not look very tasty. The cover depicts two jackdaws in front of a mirror, each in the process of transforming itself a la the two fables about the bird. From the familiar "The Lion and the Mouse" and "The Hare and the Tortoise" to the lesser-known "The Ox and the Frog" and "The Stag at the Pool," this sophisticated collection will take readers beyond single-volume treatments. An assortment of fables fabulously illustrated and strikingly presented. (Picture book/fables. 3-7)

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January 1, 2014

K-Gr 3-The wall-calendar-type layout successfully showcases the illustrations of this offbeat adaptation of Aesop's fables. Each spread's featured image is rendered in the surreal style, combined with realistic and playful depictions of animal protagonists. The simple, straightforward text is enhanced by small figures that echo the introductory scene. The pictures are humorous, but sometimes at odds with the story. For example, the country and town mice dine on oats and barleycorns and then on "the remains of a feast-cakes, jellies and wonderful-smellingcheeses," but their sparse table only displays a soup bowl. The tales fold the morals into the concluding sentence, as in the story "The Dog and His Shadow": "So he snapped at the shadow in the water but as he opened his mouth his piece of meat fell out and dropped in the water and he saw it no more." Some of these endings fall a bit flat, but the prose will work for reading aloud, and the absurd, funny pictures add dimension to the short narratives that will appeal to some readers. An additional purchase for collections with varied editions of Aesop's tales.-Margaret Bush, Simmons College, Boston

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