Aesop Rewrites: So lovely and Gentle: Aesop’s Fables by Jerry Pinkney

Aesop’s Fables by Jerry Pinkney

Aesop’s Fables by Jerry Pinkney

Aesop’s Fables by Jerry Pinkney. 2000.

Compression and storytelling meld with just enough detail to set the stage and uphold the story. I found a mix of familiar and more obscure stories (i.e. “The cat, the Rooster and the Mouse”). All included small details that made the story more vivid, like garlands of flowers around the heifer’s neck. This is a compilation, so there's not much to say on the whole. A few notes on individual stories:

  • “Shepherd Boy and the Wolf”: I think the story is more powerful when the boy gets eaten, but hey, it’s Pinkney’s book. 
  • But there was a mixed meaning on p. 44. “Those who complain most often suffer least.” Maybe better would be: those who suffer least often complain the most. If it were a story of a squeaky wheel getting oiled, then the moral of “complain to get what you want” could come out of the current phrasing.
  • Some are hysterically funny. Like a drowning boy being lectured—“there’s a time and a place for everything.” No kidding! It makes me wonder what Dahl or Edward Lear would do with these tales.
Rebecca Grabill

Rebecca has been writing since childhood, her first book about a kitten published between homemade cardboard covers in second grade. Although she studied religion and philosophy in university, she continued writing, earning an MFA from Hamline University and publishing multiple picture books (no longer with homemade covers) and a collection of poetry with a variety of New York and independent publishers. She has also published a wide array of fiction, essays, and poetry in magazines and journals and photographs for Getty Images. She balances writing with homeschooling the younger of her six children, launching her young adults, church activities, and overseeing a small flock of chickens in rural West Michigan.

www.rebeccagrabill.com
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