Pinkney, Jerry. Aesop’s Fables. SeaStar Books, 2000.
Aesop’s Fables is written and illustrated by Jerry Pinkney. It is the winner of 2001 American Library Association (ALA) Notable Children Book award. The book is a collection of 61 of Aesop’s fables. It is targeted to grades kindergarten through 4, but can be enjoyed by anyone as it can be read alone or with someone. The stories are short and simple and include colorful, detailed illustrations.
The book is a collection of Aesop’s fables. It includes familiar stories such as “The Town Mouse and the Country Mouse” and “The Tortoise and the Hare” and and lessons including, “You are judged by the company you keep” and “master what you teach.” The tales are complemented by illustrations, some small like the father in the “The Bundle of Sticks” and some large like the full page spread of “The Lion and the Mouse”. The author adds a one sentence statement to summarize the moral of the story. The images are created in realistic style and detailed and colorful.
The artwork captures the characters in the morals really well. For example, the image in “The Fisherman and His Catch” reflects both the fisherman’s disappointment at the small catch and the fish’s gasp for mercy.
The book is large, but not oversized, which makes the images more enjoyable than a smaller book. It has a table of contents so the reader can find a specific tale. The author includes an introduction with a brief overview of the history of Aesop’s fables and how he learned from them as a child and continues to learn from them as an adult.
Aesop’s Fables is well suited for an adult/child story time. It takes the readers through the lessons of Aesop teaching the life lessons.
Book Notes 