British husband and wife and author / artist team Frances and Rowan Barnes-Murphy present one hundred and three fables from Aesop in this engaging collection, including many famous examples, as well as many that are less well known. Here we find such classics as The Tortoise and the Hare, which leads off the collection, as well as The Fox and the Grapes, The Town Mouse and the Country Mouse, The Boy Who Cried Wolf!, The Lion and the Mouse, The Ant and the Grasshopper, and many others. The fable of Androcles and the lion is here, although not labeled as such (here is is The Thorn in the Lion's Paw), and many lesser-known fables as well. The morals which have traditionally been appended to Aesop's fables have been omitted, owing to Rowan Barnes-Murphy's belief, stated in the brief Collector's Note, that they are unnecessary, and do not represent the original form of these pithy tales. The fables are paired with numerous black and white illustrations and thirty ink and watercolor paintings, and the book closes with an index...

I have read any number of Aesopian collections over the years, from childhood onward—a few years back I undertook a project to read a number of collections, and of course, having written my masters dissertation on Reynard, I consulted numerous Aesopian sources there as well—but the Barnes-Murphys' The Fables of Aesop is nevertheless a welcome addition to that body of works. The retellings here are appealing—brief but entertaining, as one would expect—and I thought the choice to leave out the explicit moralizing was an interesting one. The accompanying artwork was charming, and I found that I enjoyed both the brief black and white header illustrations at the beginning of each fable, as well as the more extensive color illustrations. Rowan Barnes-Murphy's animals are very expressive, expanding upon the emotional aspect of the brief texts they accompany. I also appreciated the note on Aesop at the front, as it mentions Babrius and Phaedrus, our two main classical sources for Aesop. I am always surprised at how often Aesop is treated as an "author," because these fables are attributed to him, even though he never wrote anything down, and was most likely illiterate. In any case, although not destined to become a personal favorite—an honor that would probably go to either the Milo Winter collection (what can I say? I grew up with it), or to that illustrated by Jerry Pinkney—this is one I would recommend to those seeking a solidly engaging Aesop collection. ( )

This book Aesop's has a big collection of fables written by a slave and story-teller who lived in Ancient Greece between 620 and 560 BC. Aesop's Fables are mostly short animal stories with each fable ending with a moral advice. His fables are some of the most well known in the world. Today those fables remain a popular choice on educating children today. I have read several stories at Aesop's Fables, such as "The Fox and the Grapes", "The Tortoise and the Hare", "The North Wind and the Sun", and "The Ant and the Grasshopper" and they are well-known throughout the world.

comprehensive collection of Aesop's fables
black and white/ color illustrations

comprehensive collection of Aesop's fables
black and white/ color illustrations

The Fables of Aesop as retold by Frances Barnes-Murphey is an excellent collection of the original fables. The collection includes 92 separate fables, which includes both colored and black and white illustrations of the text. This collection is very useful; I was able to use it to plan a lesson for my high school English support students. Fables are excellent stories for young children, but they are also useful for older teenagers who need practice analyzing short stories and deciphering the “deeper” meanings often found in literature. These particular stories are ideal to teach students analysis since the author purposely hid a message in the short narrative.
In addition the fables are so short, they are ideal for lesson planning. Many times, English teachers use too much class time covering the reading of the story and are unable to spend time in the analysis. With these fables very little time is used in the reading of the text, and most of the time is dedicated to the analysis and response to literature portion of the lesson. The trick is to allow students to have time to discuss the possible morals of the fable. I need to become comfortable with students grappling with the different possible interpretations; I do not need to give them the “correct” answer too quickly. I can however use my time to teach them to write rhetorically as they write about literature.
Ages: 5 and Up ( )