Creighton University

The first in an apparently extended series of booklets containing three fables each.  Part of the fun here is that Aesop is a small raccoon who is adventuring out into the world and witnesses various adventures.  Those adventures turn out to be traditional Aesopic fables, here the three pictured on the booklet's cover: TH, TB, and CP.  Young Aesop has just asked his "Nana" why something happens -- and just heard that one sometimes needs to go find the answer for oneself -- when he goes out and runs into his friends, the tortoise, the hare, the fox, and two mice.  The simple colored pictures are nicely interspersed with a version of the traditional story that is well thought through.  Through the preparations, Aesop is worried that the race is too long for the tortoise, and he does not want the tortoise to lose.  Hare dawdles laughing at the tortoise before starting to run.  The tortoise tells Aesop that he has something that the hare does not have.  The hare here falls asleep looking for four-leaf clovers.  Aesop learns that bragging can hurt people and that anything is possible with perseverance.  The second episode begins similarly.  Out in the forest he hears two boys and climbs a tree to hide from them.  One boy is teasing another about being unable to reach the leaves on a tree.  Aesop yells to the boys to play dead when a brown bear rushes out from the forest.  The short boy asks the friend to pull him up into the tree but his friend ignores him and climbs higher.  Here Aesop tells Nana that "a good friend will always be there when you need them" (24-25).  Little Aesop's venture out of the house the third time brings him to a picnic table with a pitcher of water.  His friend the crow figures out how to get the water he craves.  A confused Aesop learns from the crow's clever solution to his problem.  Aesop even helps throw pebbles into the pitcher.  "Most problems can be fixed with a little hard work" (36).  I look forward to the next two booklets, already ordered, and the succeeding members of the series.

The second in a developing series of booklets containing three fables each.  Part of the fun here is that Aesop is a small raccoon who keeps going out into the world and witnessing various adventures.  Those adventures turn out to be traditional Aesopic fables, here the three pictured on the booklet's cover: GGE, "Three Equal Shares," and OR.  Young Aesop has again just asked his "Nana" why something happens -- and just heard that one sometimes needs to go find the answer for oneself -- when he goes out and runs into an owl who explains to him why the farmer they see is so sad.  He killed the goose that laid golden eggs.  This farmer harvested many golden eggs, but did not provide for the goose as he and his wife originally wanted to do.  Aesop reacts with a gasp at hearing the farmer's plan to kill the goose.  The second adventure involves Aesop overhearing a wolf and fox agree to hunt together.  They are unsuccessful.  There is a typo on 23: "They tried and tried, but did not having any luck."  The wolf and fox soon ask the lion to join their partnership, and the fable turns into LS.  After claiming all three shares, this lion yells "Run!" and his two partners do, in one of the best pictures of the book.  It is also used on the cover.  OR here is told as an interaction between an oak and grass, not reeds.  Aesop comes upon the oak as it lies uprooted by a storm the night before.  The grasses respond to Aesop's questioning about why they did not get flattened by saying in tiny voices, echoed in tiny print, "We bend."  The oak assures Aesop that his roots are deep and that he will be okay.

The third in a developing series of booklets containing three fables each.  Part of the fun here is that Aesop is a small raccoon who keeps going out into the world and witnessing various adventures.  Those adventures turn out to be traditional Aesopic fables, here the three pictured on the booklet's cover:  BW, LM, BS.  Young Aesop has again just asked his "Nana" why something happens -- and just heard that one sometimes needs to go find the answer for oneself -- when he goes out and sees a bored shepherd boy.  Soon Aesop has witnessed the whole of BW.  The stalking wolf on 12 is particularly well pictured.  In the second story, Aesop's friend the mouse wants to see how close he can get to a sleeping lion.  The mouse is soon dancing on a branch above the sleeping lion's head.  He falls onto the lion's nose: this scene is again well pictured on 19.  The lion here is netted right after he has released the mouse.  In the third story, the father of three quarreling boys ties two strings around four twigs.  The two strings, he says, represent "our love for each other" and "our loyalty to each other."