Creighton University

I include this book because it belongs to a set including fables.  In this version a contented fisherman catches a magic fish and at his request releases him.  For that he is granted a wish.  He has no wish, but when he tells his wife, she has a wish for a better house.  He goes back and, in a move more from fairy tales than from fables, chants a rhyming line that brings back the fish.  The wife wakes up the next day in their new home and wants a palace.  The fish grants the request.  The next day she wants to be queen.  The fish, getting annoyed, grants the request.  The next day she wants to turn off the sun.  The fish reduces them back to their original house.  Greed got the better of them.  The fisherman in this version if imaged as a badger, I believe, or perhaps a wolverine?  This story is not included in the earlier larger set of smaller "Stories to Grow On."

Internally the same as "Cooperation: Stone Soup," from the same publisher in 2000.  Each pair of pages presents one full page of text and one of colored illustration.  The picture of the cow maid holding her mop at the farmhouse's half-door is too good to miss!  After a day of no luck begging for food, this cook/traveler proclaims that his stone has magic qualities.  A page at the end stops to reflect on cooperation in the light of the story.

I include this book because it helps complete a series containing fable books.  In this development of the Midas legend, Midas is approached by a surprise visitor who offers him the gift of transforming whatever he touches into gold.  This visitor is pictured as a grasshopper, and Midas and his beloved daughter Marygold are pictured as something like hedgehogs.  The next morning Midas delightedly turns object after object into gold, even the roses loved by Marygold.  She comes to him upset over a golden rose.  When Midas tries to comfort her with a hug, she too is turned into gold.  Midas encounters the same spirit and admits to having learned his lesson.  He follows instructions to get water from the river and sprinkle it onto all that has been transformed, and these things then revert to their former state.  Once Marygold is transformed back, Midas loses his preoccupation with counting his money and learns to enjoy the great outdoors.  "A wise person knows that money or gold can't buy happiness and that simple things can be the best."

I include this book because it helps complete a series containing fable books.  This lovely old tale was not in the shorter "Stories to Grow On" series.

Each pair of pages presents one full page of text and one of colored illustration.  This version of BW is particularly well told.  The boy had never seen a wolf; he even wondered if they existed at all.  He had tried to play with the sheep to vary his days: no luck!  The boy hid when he first fooled the people.  He emerged from behind a tree to tell them how funny they looked running up the hill to help.  Maybe the best image is that of the townsfolk wondering what was up as they reached the top of the hill and found neither wolf nor shepherd.  On the climactic day, the wolf ran off into the forest with all the sheep.  Ther story ends, poignantly, with the boy sitting where he had sat when surrounded by his sheep.  "The shepherd boy didn't think his joke was so funny anymore.

Each pair of pages presents one full page of text and one of colored illustration.  In this well executed version of the traditional story, the emperor in love with clothes is a hippopotamus, though the text never mentions that fact.  The thieves from a faraway land are a fox and a weasel.  "Only the wisest people in the land will see this fabric….  It will be invisible to fools or those who are unfit for their office."  These two "tailors" are wise enough to tell the king as they measure him that his new suit will feel as light as a spider's web.  "You might even feel as though you're wearing nothing at all."  The tailors hard at work cutting and sewing the air let a befuddled minister know that they need more food because they are working so hard!  The emperor rewards the boy who tells him the truth.  "You risked being called a fool to tell me the truth."

I include this book because it helps complete a series containing fable books.  Percy and Amelia are twins.  Here they are pictured as bear cubs.  Percy loves flying his kite, and Amelia loves bird-watching with her binoculars.  As they approach their birthday, each knows what to give the other, but neither has the money.  Amelia buys Percy a new tail for his kite, but she has to sell her binoculars to do it.  Percy buys Amelia a case for her binoculars, but needs to sell his kite to do it.  When they open gifts, they laugh, have a picnic, and declare that this has been the best of birthdays.

I include this book because it helps complete a series containing fable books.  It was not included in the earlier "Stories to Grow On" series.  As the frayed old horse tells the young velveteen rabbit, "You become real after someone loves you for a long time.  By then you are old and tattered, but that's okay.  When you are real, you are truly beautiful!"  The climax of this story comes when the velveteen rabbit becomes real in a final sense and can hop around.  I myself liked him when he was a real toy.