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Overview
AESOP, JUST IN RHYME is a new version of more than 100 favorite Aesop's Fables. The poems are light, humorous, many with dialogue to enhance characterization. Several rhyme schemes are employed to provide interest and variety. They are intended for readers and listeners of all ages. These stories, celebrated for over 2000 years, cleverly outline human flaws as portrayed by birds, fish and animals. Sometimes humans appear to catalogue their own errors. Vanity, jealousy, excessive pride, self-righteousness and decision-making without considering consequences, all have their places. We can see ourselves and our neighbors in these poems. For students to read and enjoy on their own, for parents and teachers to read to children, for adults to experience a new version of the Fables, AESOP, JUST IN RHYME offers fun as well as Aesop's enlightenment. It is hoped that you will find them entertaining for many years.Author Biography: John W. Murphy was born in New Haven, Connecticut. Among his favorite childhood memories is being introduced to Aesop by his father who was Mayor of the city for fourteen years. He particularly loved his father's reading and discussion of , ‘The Tortoise and the Hare', ‘Dog in the Manger', and ‘The Shepherd Boy'. He is a graduate of Fordham College in New York, studied English Literature and philosophy there. He also studied Educational Practice at Yale University. As a teacher in Department of Defense Schools in Europe, he always taught Aesop to his students, but sought another approach to make them more appealing. The result is, AESOP, JUST IN RHYME.
Editorials
School Library Journal
Gr 4 Up-One hundred and four of Aesop's traditional fables and accompanying morals are retold, in verse, and illustrated with occasional pen-and-ink drawings. Many of the most familiar animal tales-"The Tortoise and the Hare," "Town Mouse, Country Mouse," "Belling the Cat"-are here, though such standards as "The Wolf in Sheep's Clothing," "The Milkmaid and Her Pail" (with its "don't count your chickens-" moral), and "The Goose and the Golden Egg" do not appear. The author's stated aim is to make the fables "more appealing" through rhyme, but the doggerel that results has quite the opposite effect ("Fooling a king isn't so easy,/try it, you'll find you can get queasy"). There are occasional bits of to-the-point breeziness ("When your life's at stake,/you don't need to brake"), but the brevity and constraint required by the versifying, and the amateurish irregular rhyme schemes, often obscure meaning. The engravinglike illustrations depicting creatures in Regency attire are skilled but indistinct, offering little help in deciphering the stories. Jerry Pinkney's Aesop's Fables (SeaStar, 2000) contains fewer tales but genuine appeal; its breadth, cogency, attractiveness (and index) make it unbeatable. Milo Winter's venerable The Aesop for Children (Scholastic, 1994) has a larger selection and traditional language. For humorous colloquial versions of 36 of the fables (sans separate morals), stick with John B. McFarland's The Exploding Frog: And Other Fables from Aesop (Little, Brown, 1981; o.p.).-Nancy Palmer, The Little School, Bellevue, WA Copyright 2001 Cahners Business Information.Book Details
Published
April 6, 2001
Publisher
Xlibris Corporation
Pages
154
Format
Hardcover
ISBN
9780738841571