Product Description

In this elegantly designed volume, more than sixty of Aesop's timeless fables have been carefully selected, humorously retold, and brought gloriously to life by four-time Caldecott Honor-winner Jerry Pinkney. Included are the Shepherd Boy and The Wolf, the Lion and the Mouse, the Tortoise and the Hare, plus many other characters-and morals-that have inspired countless readers for centuries.

With more than fifty magnificent full-color illustrations, this handsome edition is a must for every bookshelf.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #74870 in Books
• Published on: 2000-09-01
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Hardcover
• 96 pages

Features

• ISBN13: 9781587170003
• Condition: NEW
• Notes: Brand New from Publisher. No Remainder Mark.
• Click here to view our Condition Guide and Shipping Prices

From Publishers Weekly
Beautifully designed, this lush, oversize volume showcases Pinkney's (The Ugly Duckling) artistry in grand style. There's a king's ransom worth of material here, as Pinkney serves up more than 60 of the ancient Greek slave-philosopher's fables. Aesop's wisdom spills across the pages as freely as Pinkney's glorious watercolors, alight with the many creatures who people the tales, from fiddling grasshoppers and diligent ants to wily foxes, clever crows, brave mice and grateful lions. Each of the vigorous retellings concludes with the kind of succinct moral that centuries of readers have come to expect (e.g., "Don't count your chickens before they're hatched"; "You are judged by the company you keep"). And whether the homilies concern a wolf in sheep's clothing or sour grapes, the timeless virtues resonate as freshly as the day they were minted. Pinkney brings his considerable talent to bear on everything from thumbnail animal portraits to sweeping full-page vistas of hearth and woodlands, and his detail, delicacy of line and subtle palette create an elegant foil for the simple parables. If there's room on the shelf for only one picture book version of Aesop, this could be it. All ages. (Oct.)
Copyright 2000 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From School Library Journal
Kindergarten-Grade 4-A visually appealing selection of 61 fables that mixes the well known ("The Fox and the Grapes," "The Tortoise and the Hare") with some that have been nearly forgotten ("The Mermaid and the Woodcutter"). In tone and format, this book is reminiscent of early 20th-century Aesop collections for children. Like Arthur Rackham and Milo Winter before him, Pinkney accompanies the stories with a blend of full-page paintings and smaller illustrations. As in those earlier collections, his text uses ele-vated language and an extremely formal sentence structure. While such loftiness is appropriate for a "classic" Aesop collection, with this edition it becomes a bit of a stum-bling block. Unfortunately, Pinkney's intro-duction doesn't give a reason for the text choices or supply sources. Morals are at-tached to each fable and for the most part they are the time-honored ones. Using a mix of watercolor and colored pencil, Pinkney's illustrations of animal characters are fairly realistic while his depictions of humans lean toward the stylized. The artist's masterful use of watercolor is most evident in his pictures of the animals. Highlights include the dou-ble-page spread that accompanies "The Lion and the Mouse" and the full-page illustration for "The Town Mouse and the Country Mouse." While the narrative style occasion-ally gets in the way of sharing aloud and its tone is sometimes at odds with the more re-laxed tone of the art, this handsome title is still one of the best of the current crop.
Denise Anton Wright, Alliance Library System, Bloomington, IL
Copyright 2000 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Booklist
Gr. 2-4. An acclaimed illustrator has set himself an ambitious task: retelling and visually reinterpreting 60 of Aesop's traditional tales. And he has succeeded brilliantly, bringing vivid new life to these ancient fables by creating pencil, colored pencil, and watercolor illustrations that are subtle and delicate in color but dynamic and dramatic in composition and in size. Pinkney is particularly successful at investing his animal characters with personality and panache, but his human characters also come alive on the page. Beginning with the illustrated endpapers, every page of this beautifully designed, lavish book is a delight for the eye and an invitation to the imagination. Happily, Pinkney's text proves equal to his art. His language, though formal, is subtly witty and begs to be read aloud, a fitting tribute to the oral tradition of the tales themselves. This first-rate edition is as artful, witty, and wise as old Aesop himself, and it will also stand the test of time. Michael Cart
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

Customer Reviews

HEAVY-DUTY GREAT LITERATURE THAT EVEN A 5YEAR OLD LIKES
Most kid books are just fluff. Boring stuff.

Aesop's Fables, on the other hand teach REAL VALUES: hard work, honesty, unity, etc. And we hear people refer to various fables on a regular basis throughout our lives.

A child is really disadvantaged if he doesn't get exposed to these valuable stories and internalize them at an early age.

I recently had to repeat the story of "the boy who cried wolf" to my 10-year old son, in order to help him to improve his behavior. this is one of the most important books you could buy for your child.

--George Stancliffe

Aesop's Fables
Aesop's Fables is a great book that is a collection of short stories. This book gave us famous phrases that are used today, such as "sour grapes." These are easy to understand stories for all ages(unless you are under the age of 7). It's amazing that such small stories have great meaning. Every fable gives some kind of small lesson at the end. The characters fit each story very well. This book is a must read for people who wonder where some of our everyday phrases come from and who want to learn a lesson from just a few sentences.

Inclusive language? Not so you would notice
This is a wonderful edition of these timeless tales. The illustrations are rich and vivid, full of action and life. Even the stories without a full page illustration are decorated with a small, evocative miniature. One reviewer finds the presence of "exclusive" language as a distraction. Please don't be misled -- these are not "politically correct" retellings of Aesop. Indeed, they are more true to the original than most versions of the fables available for children. Check it out for yourself and share it with a child.