Creighton University

Here is one of four books in a series.  The prose adaptation helps the reader to pick up La Fontaine's slant, I believe.  The grasshopper spent the summer animating the celebrations of the region.  Everyone praised her.  But summer passed.  Everyone retreated into their homes.  This grasshopper also returned home, but there was nothing in her cupboards or drawers.  "No problem!  My friends will help me."  After a long pause, the ant responded with laughter.  "Les insouciants font de mauvais gourmands."  The last illustration is as stark as the ant's dismissal.  The animals wear stylish head-coverings.  The pages consist of unusually heavy paper.

Here is one of four books in a series.  The prose adaptation helps the reader to pick up La Fontaine's slant, I believe.  It lays the story out more fully than La Fontaine's lapidary verse can.   The finish remains as stark as in La Fontaine's original fable.  The illustrations are highly stylized.  The lamb, for example, is a sphere with four struts underneath and a ball added to one side.  The wolf moves closer with every turn of a page.  The pages consist of unusually heavy paper.

Here is one of four books in a series.  The prose adaptation helps the reader to pick up La Fontaine's slant, I believe.  It lays the story out more fully than La Fontaine's lapidary verse can.  The storyteller prolongs the fox's patient wait in hunger for at least a couple of hours.  Would the crow be only holding onto the cheese that long?  The flattered crow wants to give the world's best concert.  "Flatteurs" are often "menteurs," and learning that is worth a cheese.  The illustrator's sense of the crow seems strange, but her posing and posturing of the fox is excellent, starting from his nonchalant lean against a tree in the beginning to his boasting wave good-bye with the cheese tucked under his arm.  The pages consist of unusually heavy paper.

Here is one of four books in a series.  The prose adaptation helps the reader to pick up La Fontaine's slant, I believe.  It lays the story out more fully than La Fontaine's lapidary verse can.  The illustrator gets us off to a lovely start here by having the fox licking a plate clean on the title-page.  He may have done it for another dozen dishes stacked at his side.  The narrator begins too with a strong choice.  "Un renard était très avare."  While two mice enjoy some cheese on the floor, the fox has forgotten about his guest.  He licks up the soup with lots of noise, declares that it is time for a nap, and wishes the stork good-night.  The stork waits a week to invite the fox.  A late illustration has the fox balancing a food-holding vase on his nose.  The storyteller offers La Fontaine's conclusion a bit differently: "Les trompeurs toujours sont trompés a leur tour."  The pages consist of unusually heavy paper.