Aesop's Fables

by Ann McGovern (Adapter), A.J. McClaskey (Illustrator), Ricardo Tércio (Illustrator)

Aesop's fables are retold in kid-friendly text with black-and-white illustrations throughout! This 80-page edition of AESOP'S FABLES introduces young readers to Aesop's classic fables in a fun and accessible way. Ann McGovern retells the classic fables using kid-friendly language, and there are striking black-and-white illustrations throughout.

Genres: Folklore, Animals, Classics, Childrens, Short Stories, Picture Books, Middle Grade

80 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1963

About the author

Ann McGovern Scheiner (née Weinberger) was an American writer of more than 55 children's books, selling over 30 million copies. She may be best known for her adaptation of Stone Soup, as well as Too Much Noise, historical and travel non-fiction, and biographies of figures like Harriet Tubman and Deborah Sampson Gannett and Eugenie Clark.

Reviews

[Kaylee D · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book was a very short quick read for our class. It took us one week to read it. This book really shows the point in every fable and has a good lesson. My favorite fable was The Monkey and Dolphin. I liked that one the best because it was about the monkey lying to the dolphin so the dolphin stopped being the monkey's friend. As a middle school student, this happens a lot where friends lie to each other all the time so this was a fable that was more relatable for me. I enjoyed reading this quick read a lot and recommend it to anyone.

[Kallie.C · Rating 2 out of 5]

This book was okay, it was really short which was a plus but I didn't really enjoy reading this. Although it went by pretty fast reading it in class I just don't like this type of book. This type of book it didnt hold my attention and I overall didn't enjoy it.

[Kameron · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was our read aloud for our class. It was a very interesting book about life lessons. My favorite fable was The Monkey and The Dolphin. It talked about how he lied and the dolphin no longer helped him. Overall it was a good book.

[Lee G. · Rating 3 out of 5]

This class read was not bad at all. It has a couple of very good fables that teach you small life lessons. From birds in a net to donkeys falling through roofs, this book is both funny and strongly worded. I am not sure that it was the best book for me to read at the time but it was pretty good. My favorite story has to be when the man buys a hunk of gold and never uses it for anything. Just for the fact that he had something very valuable to him made him happy. When it got stolen, he put a rock in its place and it did the exact same thing for him. Again, it was a good book and I recommend it but there were some things that I did find very boring. 3 stars.

[Abbeyw:)Turtlelover]

I loved this book I thought it was so cute, it was around 70 tales, and at the end of them, they would tell you the lesson about the tale. I did recognize some tales like the Tortoise and the Hare and the Fox and the Crow but some I had no idea it was a thing. I would recommend this to anyone who needs a classic.

[Madison.02 · Rating 2 out of 5]

I thought this book was okay. I didn't like how short it was but I thought it was a cute book for younger kids. I did recognize some tales but overall wasn't my favorite. I just found it very childish and recommend it to younger kids than 5th grade.

[Ian · Rating 3 out of 5]

Even though this was an extremely quick read, I still really liked it. Aesop's Fables really make you think and even gives you some basic things about life that you should always keep in mind. The stories in this book are very old, but that doesn't make them any less interesting. I think most nonfiction readers would love this book, as it tells you some things that really make your brain start to run.

[Evan'S Brother]

This was a great book. I would recommend this book to EVERYONE. I loved this book because of all of the different poems in the whole book. I liked how the different types of poems were on different pages.

[Meghan C · Rating 3 out of 5]

My class and I read this book as a read aloud. It wasn't a bad book. It really taught me a lot of lessons that made sense and related to real-life situations. My favorite fable was the tortoise and the hare. I haven't heard the whole fable before but I had heard the lesson and I love it because it is so true. Slow and steady wins the race. This book is filled with a lot of lessons that made sense that really surprised me how true they were. This was a great book and it was a quick read that everyone should pick up.

[Jonathon P. · Rating 3 out of 5]

I enjoyed reading this book even though it was very short. This book was filled with short little stories such as; Tortise and the Hare, The Lion and The Mouse, The Lion in Love and many more. It was a pretty easy read but some terminology wasn't modern. It was entertaining to try and figure out what the moral meant to each individual story.

[Private Account · Rating 4 out of 5]

My six-year-old loved this book. It is the best version of Aesop's Fables I have found so far, but I still imagine there is a better one out there. For what it is, this is well done. The fables are short, entertaining, and to the point.

[Eleanora · Rating 4 out of 5]

I liked this book because it was a fast read and it didn't take much brain power to read, Which is nice because I was reading it on the side. I didn't really like how short it was, but that is typical me.

[Madeline Lara · Rating 5 out of 5]

Read with my mom and it still reminded me of everyday lessons I should follow.

[Evan C]

the book was good, my favorite one would have to be the monkey and dolphin because it shows that if you lie the people that are helping you or/ your friends will abandon you because you lied to them and they lost your trust.

[JD Waggy · Rating 2 out of 5]

While I appreciate the plain language of McGovern's retellings, I felt like this collection underbid Aesop a little too much. Each fable has been pared down to at most a page, more often only a paragraph, which is fine. The thing that drove me nuts was that the ending fable of each is set off in italics and very, very fortune-cookie-esque. Aesop whacked people over the head, but this nigh crushes their skulls.
The illustrations (black, white, and orangey-red) are neat--they feel like old pottery, which is a cool vibe for the book. But it was just too spoon-fed for me to truly like this; there are other, better versions of Aesop out there.

[Sparrow .]

Who has the greatest wisdom? A slave. That’s the moral of Aesop’s Fables (and incidentally, this version doesn’t have a separate moral at the end of each tale, but allows one of the characters to speak the summarizing truth – for example:

‘Then the neighbor said, “Pray stop your weeping… TO A MISER, WHAT HE HAS IS OF NO MORE USE THAN WHAT HE HAS NOT.”’

[I have turned the italics into capital letters.]

Aesop bought his freedom with these seminal tales, which are much more instructive than the Bible – because talking animals are better teachers than bearded patriarchs. Even the greatest image in Lao Tzu is here – shockingly – in “The Oak and the Reeds”:

‘A large oak was uprooted one day by the violent winds of a hurricane. The great tree was thrown across a stream, where it lay amid some Reeds.’

That fable ends with this advice from the Reeds: “We have learned what you have not: IT IS FAR BETTER TO BEND THAN TO BREAK.”

This actually IS a book one should take to a desert island, because it's entirely on the subject of survival.

Ann McGovern is a first-rate writer, author of the classic children’s tale "Stone Soup." In a just world, she’d be as famous as Robert Frost.

[Christi · Rating 4 out of 5]

I appreciated this short and thoughtful collection of Aesop's fables! Found this copy while reorganizing some books and realized I had never fully read or appreciated it before, so I took the time to ponder some of these well-known stories and enjoyed the experience. This version would be great to read to a younger child because it contains (some rather silly) illustrations of the animal and human characters. Of course it has some of the more well-known fables such as the tortoise and the hare, but I also enjoyed realizing how many other famous sayings originated with these fables such as "don't count your chickens before they hatch" and "easier said than done." Two of my personal favorite fables were "The Miller, His Son, and Their Donkey" which points out the flaws of being a people pleaser (p. 44-45) and "The Trees and the Ax" which highlights the connection between one's own health and the health of one's neighbors (p. 68). Some of the fables were not as relevant or applicable as others, but many offered bits of timeless wisdom to consider!

[Nicholas Alexander · Rating 5 out of 5]

Great little book, written with brevity but enough narrative pulse to be compelling. It contains illustrations of almost all the stories of the famous Greek slave and a four paragraph biography of their author at the end; plus a moral lesson summing up the central idea of each tale, done in italics at the end, in either the form of a conclusion from a character or the narrator herself. The first and most known tale, "The Fox and the Grapes", appears as the cover design. Other great ones include: the hunter and the woodsman, the farmer and the stork, the falconer and the partridge, the stag at the pool, the ant and the grasshopper, the fox without a tail, Jupiter and the bee, the crow and the pitcher, Hercules and the wagoner, and the the shepherd boy and the wolf. As is universally known, the life lessons in these fables teach us timeless truths about human nature and our world. A book suitable for adults and children alike!

[Matthew · Rating 3 out of 5]

I think for young kids, this version of Aesop's fables is great. There are a little over 60 fables, most are very short and the book is filled with nice illustrations. I've always considered Aesop's fables the true life lesson book, far beyond The Bible or any other religious text. It's universal, without being shoved down your throat. We've all come to know so many of these morals that just teach good morals that every human being can learn from. The one big downside to this book is what many think, it's too short. Aesop deserves more, more, more. But while I would say there are far better versions, this version is great for young kids to start learning and reading these enjoyable and all too familiar fables that young and old can profit from knowing in their lives. For kids, it's great, but for adults might I suggest other versions.

[Hillari Morgan · Rating 3 out of 5]

This was a cute, quick, thought-provoking read aloud for my first period class. It amazed me that even though I was very familiar with many of these stories and morals from my own childhood, that I could still apply them to life as an adult! The students and I stopped often and talked about how the info could be applied to their own lives and their relationships with their friends, and because the stories were SO quick, the students never became bored (well .. mostly never). I think we all enjoyed these quick, relevant snippets of life's lessons.

[Cole · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was a good book and was very short. It was an assortment of short stories that have lessons that we compared to life today. The had pictures but they were only black, white, and reddish orange. My favorite part of the book was the pictures my favorite picture was from The Monkey and The Dolphin, where the red monkey was riding the white dolphin in the black water and a black ship in the back.

[Keshia · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.5 stars for this version

[Connor B. · Rating 4 out of 5]

I liked this book but I didn't like that there was no plot development.

[Bec · Rating 4 out of 5]

Easy to read - great for young kids

[Maria · Rating 4 out of 5]

Really enjoy reading this book. This book have different fables and talked about what is the meaning of them. So many good once to choice from. I really like it.

[Beth Huddleston · Rating 4 out of 5]

Cute illustrations accompany the fables every couple of pages while the language is kid friendly.

[Tiffany Mitchell · Rating 3 out of 5]

Quick read, but not all stories have a positive lesson.

[Joel Mast · Rating 4 out of 5]

It's not exactly a page-turner but it was short and sweet.

[Abigail · Rating 3 out of 5]

I didn't quite realize how many of our proverbs originated with Aesop. He definitely was an acute observer of human character. Not a book I would read over and over, however.

[Joy Lane · Rating 3 out of 5]

Good reference to use to act out puppet skits for "Act It Out"