Usborne Illustrated Stories from Aesop

by Susanna Davidson, Giuliano Ferri

This timeless collection of over thirty fables is filled with Aesop's best-loved characters. Meet the lion who becomes friends with a mouse, a clever fox, a foolish crow and a wolf dressed up as a sheep.Enchantingly illustrated and retold, these stories are the perfect introduction to Aesop and will be enjoyed for years to come. 272 pages

Genres: Childrens, Picture Books, Fiction, Animals

272 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 2014

About the author

Susanna Davidson also writes as Zanna Davidson.

She joined Usborne Publishing almost straight out of university and has been writing books for them pretty much ever since. She has written about everything from dinosaurs to the Queen to Fairy Ponies and tiny monsters, small enough to fit in your pocket. She is also a mum of two boys and works from home, where she spends most of her time talking to the dog and trying not to eat too much cheese.

Reviews

[Orsolya Toth · Rating 5 out of 5]

Classic Aesop animal stories with a slight contemporary spin and really nice illustrations. My children love this collection and we have read it several times together.

[Andrea Zuvich · Rating 5 out of 5]

Brilliant stories with excellent, timeless morals.

[Heather Miller · Rating 4 out of 5]

I read this one out loud with the boys. They loved guessing the moral of the story. Sometimes I preferred their answers to the book answers. 😉

[Adrian Alvarez · Rating 4 out of 5]

A nice collection of Aesop's Fables with pretty illustrations. It's good to have a book like this that keeps all of these stories in one place, but I didn't like the unnecessarily sanitized versions of some stories. I really don't mind a tale that ends with its protagonist gobbled up, in fact, however scary or gruesome that may be for a child is kind of the point, isn't it? Count me as a proponent of Bruno Bettelheim's school of thought on the role fairy tales play in child development.

What I did like about reading this book to my 6 year old daughter is that I could pause before the end of the story and listen to her come up with what she thought the moral of the story was. It was a fun exercise and it really kept her engaged as a critical reader. So much so, that she has started incorporating the idea of a story's moral in all of her entertainment. I heard her guessing, for example, at the moral of a scary TV program she was watching on Netflix called "Creeped Out" and let me tell you I couldn't have been prouder horror loving dad.

It probably isn't very helpful for me to say Aesop's Tales are pretty good (duh), but I can endorse Usborne's collection of them (even though I would have preferred more dire consequences for some of the characters).

[Amber · Rating 4 out of 5]

Enjoyed reading these aloud to my youngers (L, A, J, H) at bedtime. They looked forward to it, especially J and H, who enjoyed the many illustrations. I skipped over a couple stories that feature Zeus, which I'm not ready to expose the youngest ones to. Some of the stories have been quite changed from older versions, and I don't want this to be their only exposure to Aesop, but it's a nice intro and an enjoyable read.

[JoAnne Styger · Rating 4 out of 5]

Another wonderful book from Usborne that my children have read over and over. It has fewer illustrations than many of the others.

[Tracy · Rating 5 out of 5]

This Usborne collection is amazing! Great illustrations kept my 6 year old engaged with every fable.

[Andrea Howard Summers · Rating 5 out of 5]

Love this!! Perfect bedtime read for kids and great lessons.

[Daisy · Rating 4 out of 5]

Fables with moral at the end. Beautifully illustrated.

[Colin · Rating 5 out of 5]

Just about a perfect collection of Aesop's fables, with appropriate illustrations. I read this book to my children for story time while homeschooling (ages 6 and 8, currently), and they loved it.

[Megan Kline · Rating 5 out of 5]

Beautiful version

[Catherine]

I enjoyed reading aloud to my children .am looking forward to the next read

[Deanna Anderson · Rating 5 out of 5]

cute

[Aidan Trabold · Rating 4 out of 5]

Good illustrations and retold in a legitimately fantastic way.

[Jock Zollinger · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book features many of the folk tale stories including the tortoise and the hare and many more. I would recommend this book to people who like lesson stories. I would rate this five stars because I liked how at the end of each story there was a lesson.

[Rosanna · Rating 5 out of 5]

Nightly stories with Z. This was great.