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The Complete Fables (Penguin Classics)

The Complete Fables (Penguin Classics)

List Price: $10.00
Your Price: $7.13
Product Info Reviews

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Rating: 2 stars
Summary: Too many animals
Review: Aesop's fables are interesting, but I wouldn't try to read too many of them at once. I am currently reading this edition of Aesop's fables. If I have to read any more animal stories, I may have to pick up a copy of "Final Exit." The author's notes, however, make this edition almost worth the time.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: Not for children, but a good source & great book
Review: I think perhaps some of the reviewers here are missing the point of this book. And please don't go read Ben E. Perry's book because it's just full of falsities. I know, I've read it. Here's the thing: the fables that I and many others have grown up with are really adaptations and distortions of the real fables. And as the author points out, those fables may have been attributed to Aesop but he didn't think all of them up. He had other sources he drew from. These fables are probably not best read to children but if you're going to use them to help teach morals then adapting them to your own purpose is fine. However, I read this edition for a scholarly purpose because I'm interested in the origins of fables and folk tales. It is a really good book for that purpose. Morality was not Aesop's thing, the morals were attached later. If you're into morality then try another book.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: Not for children, but a good source & great book
Review: I think perhaps some of the reviewers here are missing the point of this book. And please don't go read Ben E. Perry's book because it's just full of falsities. I know, I've read it. Here's the thing: the fables that I and many others have grown up with are really adaptations and distortions of the real fables. And as the author points out, those fables may have been attributed to Aesop but he didn't think all of them up. He had other sources he drew from. These fables are probably not best read to children but if you're going to use them to help teach morals then adapting them to your own purpose is fine. However, I read this edition for a scholarly purpose because I'm interested in the origins of fables and folk tales. It is a really good book for that purpose. Morality was not Aesop's thing, the morals were attached later. If you're into morality then try another book.

Rating: 4 stars
Summary: Very Moralistic.
Review: I typed in Aesop's Fables into Amazon's search engine and there were 299 matches and none of them were quite the same as the book I have read. This edition comes closest but is not exactly it. Anyway this is my review.

Aesop tells over 200 small stories. There are rarely over a page in length and each has a moral which is printed underneath but can usually be grasped before the story finishes. Included, of course are the famous stories, "The boy and the wolf", "the Tortoise and the Hare" but there are over a hundred less famous stories which have morals that are just as meaningful.

This is a great book but not one I can recommend wholeheartedly. It is more like an encyclopedia of stories than a book itself. It would be impossible to just sit down and read these stories one by one to a child without sounding preachy. Instead it would be useful as a reference that a parent could use to explain a misdeed.

One surprise of these stories is that our morals have not changed in the thousand years since Aesop wrote these. He often talks about oppresors and these are still very much influencing our daily lives.

Rating: 4 stars
Summary: Very Moralistic.
Review: I typed in Aesop's Fables into Amazon's search engine and there were 299 matches and none of them were quite the same as the book I have read. This edition comes closest but is not exactly it. Anyway this is my review.

Aesop tells over 200 small stories. There are rarely over a page in length and each has a moral which is printed underneath but can usually be grasped before the story finishes. Included, of course are the famous stories, "The boy and the wolf", "the Tortoise and the Hare" but there are over a hundred less famous stories which have morals that are just as meaningful.

This is a great book but not one I can recommend wholeheartedly. It is more like an encyclopedia of stories than a book itself. It would be impossible to just sit down and read these stories one by one to a child without sounding preachy. Instead it would be useful as a reference that a parent could use to explain a misdeed.

One surprise of these stories is that our morals have not changed in the thousand years since Aesop wrote these. He often talks about oppresors and these are still very much influencing our daily lives.

Rating: 4 stars
Summary: Aesop for academics
Review: This is not an everyman's book of folklore, but good if you have an academic interest in he roots of some of the most famous stories in the world. This ain't what your first grade teacher told you folks, but it's interesting to say the least. One can compare this with the uncensored versions of Grimm's Fairy Tales in that these originals are quite brutal and "politically incorrect" in comparison to the children's versions that most of us are familiar with today...if you are a purist and /or a student of folklore, then this is for you.


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