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Aesop's Fables
Aesop's Fables
Aesop's Fables
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Aesop's Fables

Rating: 4 out of 5 stars

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Comprised of over 300 classic animal tales, this edition of Aesop’s Fables will capture any young reader’s imagination. Aesop’s Fables have long been remembered as farcical, but resonant tales, capturing the imaginations of adults and children alike. Aesop’s Fables have been a cornerstone in narrating to children the differences between right and wrong.

Including such revered tales as the Tortoise and the Hare, to lesser known but equally as insightful stories such as the Mountain and the Mouse, Aesop’s Fables have provided timeless guidance to young children through the guise of anthropomorphized animals. Using common animals in this manner has been a treasured vehicle for young readers to better understand and relate to the world around them.

Aesop’s oral stories had been passed down through generations to celebrate the morality of life before being captured on the page. Other well-known fables in this collection include; The Goose Who Laid the Golden Eggs, The City Mouse, and The Kid and the Wolf. This translation was compiled by George Fyler Townsend. With eye-catching new covers and a new note about the author, this edition of Aesop's Fables is both modern and readable.

Since our inception in 2020, Mint Editions has kept sustainability and innovation at the forefront of our mission. Each and every Mint Edition title gets a fresh, professionally typeset manuscript and a dazzling new cover, all while maintaining the integrity of the original book.

With thousands of titles in our collection, we aim to spotlight diverse public domain works to help them find modern audiences. Mint Editions celebrates a breadth of literary works, curated from both canonical and overlooked classics from writers around the globe.

LanguageEnglish
PublisherMint Editions
Release dateApr 7, 2020
ISBN9781513264110
Author

Aesop

Aesop was a Greek fabulist and storyteller credited with a number of fables now collectively known as Aesop's Fables.

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Reviews for Aesop's Fables

Rating: 3.87304239541387 out of 5 stars
4/5

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  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    short little proverbs usually using animals to tell a morality stories. Some of these proverbs are often spoken but wonder how many know whence they come? Remind me of the Proverbs from the Bible. Rating 3.75
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    Just as relevant as ever.
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    This was my first read through of Aesop's Fables in its entirety. Obviously I have encountered many of these fables before individually but was somewhat surprised by how dark they are. Aesop as a freedman was brilliant at seeing into the psyche of humankind. The Fables have held up well over the last 2500 years. I found it odd that the translator used the names of the Roman gods as opposed to the original greek gods.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    Collections of these short tales with a moral were among the very first works--after the Bible--to be published on the printing press. It's amazing how many catch phrases come from these fables: Honesty is the best policy. Don't count your chickens before they've hatched. Look before you leap. Aesop himself, like Homer, may never have existed in history. Tradition makes him a slave in Asia Minor, possibly of Ethiopian descent, born in 620 and eventually freed for his cleverness becomes a counselor to kings and companion to philosophers. Herodotus, Aristophanes, Plato, Aristotle, Plutarch, Horace all mentioned Aesop and his tales, and the earliest surviving collection is from the first century. They're been used by orators and in primers ever since, and definitely should be read in the interest of cultural legacy. They're short. One of the most famous ones is only three lines:Driven by hunger, a fox tried to reach some grapes hanging high on the vine but was unable to, although he leaped with all his strength. As he went away, the fox remarked, 'Oh, you aren't even ripe yet! I don't need any sour grapes.' People who speak disparagingly of things that they cannot attain would do well to apply this story to themselves.To be honest, I tend to think these are best read by children, preferably in an illustrated edition. There's really no authoritative canon for the fables, the two primary collections from antiquity consist of only a few hundred tales. A lot of translations use antiquated language, or put the pithy tales into rather elaborated verse, or cut the moral, so you might want to scan various editions before deciding which to get. They're worth knowing, if only to be able to recognize where so many familiar stories and phrases come from.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    Summary:This book is a series of short, and a little weird, stories with a little bit of proverb advice at the end of each story.Personal Reaction:I think this is an outstanding set of fables and short stories. I found this to be very entertaining and a little bit of an eye-opener. Reading some of these stories to my children was entertaining to them and entertaining to me to watch their reactions. A lot of the proverb advice I had to explain a little deeper for my oldest to understand them, but all in all a very good and entertaining read.Classroom Extension:1. These stories can be intergraded in many fashion of ways. I think it would be ideal to use as a "brain-break" in between lessons.2. This book can be used as a good way to bring literature into the classroom and can be a good way to introduce fables, proverbs, and short stories.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    This book contains 82 of Aesop's fables. Many of these short stories with a moral of the story at the end, I have never heard before. Many, many of these early stories have morals that I never knew the origin of - A stitch in time saves nine, honesty is the best policy. These moral little sayings have withstood the test of time.
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    This was the first time I ever read any of Aesop's Fables and I loved each little story. These nuggets of morality hidden within tiny stories truly makes one think about their actions towards themselves and toward others. It is an excellent book to read to your little ones in hopes of helping them understand decency towards others.

    I would recommend this book to others.
  • Rating: 1 out of 5 stars
    1/5
    Nothing in it is true - though some argue that it has 'truths' (of a sort). I gave it one star...
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    Yet another I should reread, although so many of the fables are so familiar. Who could forget the fox and the grapes? The lessons in Aesop are still worthwhile today.
  • Rating: 3 out of 5 stars
    3/5


    Enjoyed the ones I was familiar with, many of them seemed repetitious. Overall a book everyone should and usually are familiar with.
  • Rating: 3 out of 5 stars
    3/5


    Enjoyed the ones I was familiar with, many of them seemed repetitious. Overall a book everyone should and usually are familiar with.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    A cute collection of morality stories/fables collected into this volume. I have read it so many times--as an adult, as a kid, as a teen--and each time I take something different away from it. I love it.In fact, I took a tattoo idea from the Tortise and the Hare fable, and added to it my desire to travel, and voila! Two different ways to travel, but in my case, there isn't necessarily a correct one.
  • Rating: 3 out of 5 stars
    3/5
    Aesops's Fables are short and sweet and easy to read for most ages. A number of the stories are very clever, all with a point or moral to be learned in the end. There are quite a few in this book that I have never heard before, many not as creative as the common Aesop's Fables I grew up knowing; however it was fun to read through them.
  • Rating: 3 out of 5 stars
    3/5
    I liked this one better than "Grimm's Fairy Tales" because A) they're all super short, great for reading a teeny bit at a time and B) the language is much more understandable. But like "Grimm's Fairy Tales", the stories get repetitive after a while. They're all moral lessons, and they fall under three categories: evil is its own ruin, be honest and don't lie, don't be vain/greedy/prideful. Consequences of failing to heed lessons A, B, and C will result in you being eaten by a tiger 90% of the time.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    Some were great, some were dull (or even rather mean), and some were in-between. Overall, not super crazy about it, but glad to have read the collection of them.
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    A moral education, and Chesterton's perceptive remarks about fable as truism and fairytale as realism aside, also something of a sentimental one. It's like, if we worshipped Aesop, does anyone think the Bible would have caught on as instructive stories for children and maybe adults, as opposed to the bloodthirsty fever dreams of a Middle Eastern death cult?Plus some of them are just dumb jokes, and a surprising percentage of those are funny.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    I read this book while taking a course on animal satire with a focus on the Aesopic tradition. The fables are very entertaining and make for good conversation with friends. The translator, Laura Gibbs, has posted many of the fables on her website. However, the book is organized by situations, and there is nothing more satisfying than quoting one of Aesop's fables to remedy a particular situation.
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    I enjoyed this chapter book because of the moral messages learned from each short fable and how I could remember a majority of these stories from my own childhood. The moral lessons learned from these stories stem from always telling the truth, the idea that slow and steady will win the race, and to not judge someone by their appearance. As a child I remembered reading a great majority of these and enjoyed being able to reinterpret what was being said. Although the version I read did not contain illustrations, I did enjoy how the words came to life on the page. As one reads these stories, they can be illustrated in the reader's mind. The big idea of this chapter book is to give a recorded source of the oral stories told so as to teach moral lessons to children and adults.
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    Classic stories for people of any age. I have had a copy since I was little and it almost always is displayed on one of my shelves. It is full of small tales you have probably heard over and over, but delightfully do not grow old. There were wonderful illustrations as well.
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    I always loved reading these fables when I was a kid, and they certainly permeated their way through my childhood even up until now. While they may seem a little silly and/or difficult to understand, there is certainly a message to be taken away from all of them if you are willing to think outside of the box.
  • Rating: 3 out of 5 stars
    3/5
    Very, very simple anecdotes. Any fables that have been turned into lengthier morality tales such as "The Boy Who Cried Wolf" have been beefed up considerably.
  • Rating: 3 out of 5 stars
    3/5
    Not the best book of fables in the whole wide world, but it does have its charm and its certainly brings back memories. There are lots of tales that I have heard before when I was a kid, several of them actually quite popular. However, this book goes straight to the point. You know the tale of the Turtle and the Hare, which has already been rewritten by several different authors, even having animated movies about it? Well, this book tells the story in half a page. Which isn't so bad, really. It's actually interesting to read those stories in a short format, with the emphasis on the story's lesson. A nice read for grown-ups, a good thing to give the children something to think about.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    It would be a benefit to mankind if these morals were taught today. Instead, everything seems to be nonjudgmental. "Who are you to tell me I'm wrong?!!"
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    Who does not like Aesop's Fables? Come on.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    I consider this a re-read - I can't quite remember when I read this previously, but most of the 100 fables included in this collection were familiar. I always knew that each fable included a moral - it was interesting in reading these that sometimes I didn't think the moral fit all that well.
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    A collection of the greatest stories with a moral attribute ever. Attributed by Aristotle as the best. Transformed into verse by Socrates, these stories captured the imagination of the greatest thinkers in human history, and continue to do so today. No child stands to be harmed by learning these tales, in fact, and argument could be made for the opposite effect. The most highly recommended literature for children by indisputable sources.
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    Loved Aesop’s Fables as a child and I still do!!
  • Rating: 2 out of 5 stars
    2/5
    Written, according to legend, by the Greek slave Aesop, these one or two page fables offers the readers lessons and morals for a variety of circumstances. The edition that I read did not contain all of Aesop’s fables (there are over 350+ stories), but did include many of familiar ones, Androcles and the Lions, the Fox and the grapes, story of the tortoise and the hare, the country mouse and the city mouse etc. For the most part I was disappointed (I think my previous exposure to the Aesop Fables was from the Rocky and Bullwinkle Show and the "Aesop & Son" segments—very funny and much more insightful than the original)—most of the tales appear to be pointless, with some either hypocritical or abhorrent—many of the fables the reader is presented with a character of honorable behavior that is taken advantage of by those who are not. I suppose the moral of any story is life is hard—get used to it! I would not recommended this to any child—even though this book is often marketed that way—only 2 out of 5 stars.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    Brilliant stuff, but some of the morals seem to contradict others. For example, The Ant And The Grasshopper teaches one to always prepare for the future, whereas The Frogs Desiring A King has the moral "Let well enough alone!" I think most adults can see the nuances differentiating those two stories, but a child might not be able to. And while some stories speak of the importance of teamwork, some exalt individual toughness and refusal to play along with others. So why do I still give this 4 stars? Because of life's pesky gray areas, of course.
  • Rating: 3 out of 5 stars
    3/5
    Another reviewer said it best when stating that he enjoyed Aesop's Fables for the lessons rather than the storytelling. I was surprised to see how many of today's maxims originated from this collection of stories, and even moreso to hear that they had been penned in the 5th century BC. Definitely worth a read.

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Aesop's Fables - Aesop

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