The Fabled Life of Aesop: The extraordinary journey and collected tales of the world's greatest storyteller

by Ian Lendler, Pamela Zagarenski (Illustrator)

Overview

★ “Lovely art comes with unusual perspectives on familiar tales about lions, mice and trickster foxes.”   —Kirkus, starred review
 
“Many children are familiar with Aesop’s fables but it is a fair bet that few know much about the storyteller himself…(a) beautiful volume.”   —Wall Street Journal

Honoring the path of a slave, this dramatic picture-book biography and concise anthology of Aesop’s most child-friendly fables tells how a child born into slavery in ancient Greece found a way to speak out against injustice by using the skill and wit of his storytelling—storytelling that has survived for 2,500 years. Stunningly illustrated by two-time Caldecott Honor winner Pamela Zagarenski.

The Tortoise and the Hare. The Boy Who Cried Wolf. The Fox and the Crow. Each of Aesop’s stories has a lesson to tell, but Aesop’s life story is perhaps the most inspiring tale of them all.

Gracefully revealing the genesis of his tales, this story of Aesop shows how fables not only liberated him from captivity but spread wisdom over a millennium. This is the only children’s book biography about him.

Includes thirteen illustrated fables:  The Lion and the Mouse, The Goose and the Golden Egg, The Fox and the Crow, Town Mouse and Country Mouse, The Ant and the Grasshopper, The Dog and the Wolf, The Lion and the Statue, The Tortoise and the Hare, The Boy Who Cried Wolf, The North Wind and the Sun, The Fox and the Grapes, The Dog and the Wolf, The Lion and the Boar.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781328585523
Publisher:	HarperCollins
Publication date:	03/10/2020
Pages:	64
Sales rank:	448,962
Product dimensions:	8.50(w) x 10.70(h) x 0.70(d)
Age Range:	4 - 7 Years

About the Author

Ian Lendler is the author of the acclaimed Stratford Zoo graphic novel series and the picture books, Undone Fairy Tale, Saturday, and One Day A Dot. He is at one with the universe, but only when eating pizza. He lives near San Francisco, CA.

Pamela Zagarenski is the winner of two Caldecott Honors. The books she has illustrated have also been Booklist Editor's Choices, Horn Book Fanfare and Bulletin Blue Ribbon books, winners of Bank Street's Claudia Lewis Award, and translated into many languages. As well as illustrating picture books, she creates paintings and has a gift card line. She lives in Connecticut. Visit her online at pzagarenski.com, on Instagram @sacredbee, and Twitter @sacredbeez.

Editorial Reviews

01/27/2020

Aesop’s life as an enslaved person is centered in this framing of his classic fables. The book’s first section gently glosses Aesop’s biography (“Growing up, Aesop learned to speak differently from people who were free. Slaves had to be careful”) and describes his fables as tools to convey meaning: “He had to find a way to tell the truth without angering his master. So he spoke in code.” The second section presents a collection of classic fables themselves, told in clear, concise language—“Once a hare was making fun of a tortoise for being so slow”—with an italicized moral at the end: “Slow but steady wins the race.” Zagarenski’s fantastical illustrations, rendered in blues and golden tones, are full of charming incongruities finely detailed, like a cheetah in knickerbockers and vultures perched next to a patterned coffee pot, holding spoons and forks in their beaks. Ages 4–7. (Mar.)

Publishers Weekly

"Many children are familiar with Aesop’s fables, but it is a fair bet that few know much about the storyteller himself.... Pamela Zagarenski’s luminous, slightly distempered artwork brings richness and delicacy to this beautiful volume."—Wall Street Journal ★ "Lovely art comes with unusual perspectives on familiar tales about lions, mice, and trickster foxes." —Kirkus, STARRED review "Zagarenski’s fantastical illustrations, rendered in blues and golden tones, are full of charming incongruities finely detailed." —Publishers Weekly "Lendler gives depth to a collection of Aesop’s fables by incorporating them into the story of their teller’s life.... [L]avishly illustrated."—The Horn Book "Exquisitely beautiful."—Elizabeth Bird, Fuse #8 —

From the Publisher

★ 2020-01-21
Messages both overt and hidden in the life and preserved wisdom of an enslaved storyteller.

Yes, Lendler acknowledges, Aesop’s fables are generally interpreted as “simple lessons on virtue and good values,” but on closer looks, “many of them are actually practical advice on how to survive in a world in which some have power and some do not.” As evidence, he selects 13 to retell—most (“The Ant and the Grasshopper,” “The Boy Who Cried Wolf”) well known, others, such as “The Donkey and the Lapdog” and “The Lion and the Statue,” less so. Some are embedded in an imagined account of Aesop’s life based on legends from later centuries. In this narrative, the child of enslaved parents learns to speak “in code,” impresses one master but is sold to a second, and, after some years, wins freedom at last with the story of a wolf who would rather go hungry than be collared like a dog. Zagarenski places light-skinned, delicately expressive humans and graceful animals (the latter often in anthropomorphic dress and postures) into golden-toned settings. The book is highlighted by a lyrical trio of climactic freedom scenes in which morals, titles, and lines from fables become decorative elements, swirling exuberantly through dense crowds of figures. Morals printed in gold add further sumptuous notes to the tersely rendered fables.

Lovely art comes with unusual perspectives on familiar tales about lions, mice, and trickster foxes. (afterword, bibliography) (Folktales. 7-10)

Kirkus Reviews