Aesop's Fables

by J. Pinkney, Jerry Pinkney (Illustrator), Aesop (Based on a book by), Jerry Pinkey (Illustrator)

Overview

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 charactersand moralsthat 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

ISBN-13:	9781587170003
Publisher:	Chronicle Books
Publication date:	09/28/2000
Series:	Classic Illustrated Editions Series
Pages:	96
Sales rank:	38,371
Product dimensions:	8.75(w) x 11.56(h) x 0.50(d)
Lexile:	760L (what's this?)
Age Range:	5 - 12 Years

Editorial Reviews

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 Cahners Business Information.|

Publishers Weekly - Publisher's Weekly

K-Gr 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 Cahners Business Information.

School Library Journal

... here comes Jerry Pinkney, one of America's most honored illustrators, with what is clearly a heavyweight contender in the world of illustrated Aesopia... Pinkney's Aesop is a visual treat. These are beautiful illustrations, combining pencil, colored pencil and watercolor with a light-as-air touch. There are superb traipsing mice and musical grasshoppers. Fox's eyes sparkle, fur is furry and the animal anatomy is near perfect. The book is handsomely designed, in a large format, and fine paper sets off the illustrations to their best advantage.
—New York Times Book Review

Rosemary Wells

Gracing 61 fables from Aesop, or at least in the Aesopian tradition, Pinkney's watercolors display both masterful draftsmanship and an uncommonly keen eye for natural detail. In these oversized portraits, every tuft, feather, and whisker on his animals look right and real—as do the hats and scarves that many of them sport, their expressive body language, and the clever or foolish looks on the faces of his human characters. Though some of the morals are moot ("Notoriety is not fame") or may need explaining to younger readers ("Pride goes before a fall"), the stories themselves are timelessly clear and pithy, retold in formal, but never stiff, prose. Pinkney has added plenty of less familiar episodes to the usual chestnuts, making this not only at least as handsome as Doris Orgel's The Lion and the Mouse, and Other Aesop's Fables, illustrated by Bert Kitchen (p. 1361), but far more extensive. Whether Aesop is a complete stranger to them or an old friend, young readers will be enthralled by this eye-opening, and jaw-dropping, achievement. A masterpiece. (Fables. 5-10)Rinaldi, Ann THE STAIRCASE Harcourt Brace (256 pp.) Oct. 2000

Kirkus Reviews