#16- Aesop's Fables

#16- Aesop’s Fables

Aesop’s Fables

Retold by: Brad Sneed

Illustrated by: Brad Sneed

Dial Books for Young Readers, 2003

30 pages

Traditional Literature

“’You placed your head in a wolf’s mouth and lived to tell about it. What more could you ask for? Now fly, fly away, Miss Birdie, or I will eat you for dessert.’ Then he leaned close and whispered, ‘I promise to chew every bite forty times!’”

            This book contains stories from the original fables from Aesop. It includes stories such as “The Tortoise and the Eagle,” “The Wolf and the Crane,” and “The Ox and the Frog.” Most fables involve two different animals; and usually one of those animals ends up learning a valuable life-lesson. After each fable, Sneed identifies the moral of the story. Each story has a moral that everyone can apply to their own life.

            Sneed uses watercolor, colored pencil, and acrylic on watercolor paper to create these beautiful illustrations. Some of these pictures are drawn in a double-page spread, while others are just single page illustrations with vignettes on the opposite page. Most of the pictures have a warm hue, which creates a relaxed feeling while reading the stories.

            This book is appropriate for adults and children alike, but 2^nd-5^th grade students would probably appreciate it most. This book could be used for comparing and contrasting. The teacher would ask the students to pick out their two favorite fables. They would then have to fill out a chart that requires them to list the differences in the characters, events, and the morals learned in the stories.