The moral of the story is ..... (Aesops Fables)

Member Name: Karenwilson

Product:	Aesops Fables
Date:	12/09/01 (193 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Great read

Disadvantages: none

I was aimlessly walking around shopping looking for a birthday present for Luke’s friend, when I stumbled across one of my all time favourite books. Instantly it took me back to my childhood days when I would sit and read one of the many different stories in the book. Aesop’s Fables is this famous book. What appealed to me so much when I was child was reading the moral at the end of the story. To this day they have always stuck in my mind.

If you have never heard of Aesop’s Fables let me give you a brief bit of history about him. Aesop was a Greek fable writer who lived in the late fifth century BC. He was crippled and suffered from a speech impediment and was a slave belonging to family called Iadmon. His simple and sometimes humorous fables have been retold from generation to generation over 2,500 years. The earliest written fables date from the third century AD and since that time have been translated and printed in many countries around the world.

What is a Fable:-

A fable is a story that carries a simple message. The most well known fable has to be “The Hare and the Tortoise” Although the Hare was easily going to win the race, he become over confident and rested for a while and fell asleep. Meanwhile the Tortoise plodded slowly along and eventually won the race and the moral of the story is:

SLOW AND STEADY WINS THE RACE

** The Town Mouse and the Country Mouse **

The town mouse was extremely rich he lived in a fine house with a butler and maids. His cousin the country mouse was poor and his home was a small hole under the roots of an old oak tree. They were both happy with their lives and one day decided to stay at each other’s homes. The town mouse did not enjoy his stay at the country mouse’s home, as it was just too basic for his kind of lifestyle. The country mouse did not enjoy his stay at the town mouse’s home because to enjoy the rich and
plentiful lifestyle that he did he was always in fear of his life due to the busy road he had to cross and such noisy traffic. He also had to watch out for the town cats. The moral of the story is:-

BETTER A POOR AND SIMPLE LIFE THAN A RICH AND WORRIED ONE.

This story has such a good moral, which applies to a lot of people in this day and age. We always want more and more and sometimes the little pleasures in life are forgotten.

** The Lion and the Mouse”

This fable is another great story whereby a mouse gets caught on the back of a lion and the mouse pleads with him not to eat him and promised that one day he would return the favour by saving his life. The lion let him go because he thought that the mouse was so silly thinking that he could ever save his life. Obviously one day he did when the lion was caught up in a net and the mouse managed to gnaw his way through the rope and save the lion.

The moral of this story was: ONE GOOD TURN DESERVES ANOTHER

One of my favourite fables is “The Fox and the Crow” it is about a fox charming the crow into dropping the large piece of cheese she had in her beak so he could eat it. The moral really makes me laugh NEVER TRUST A FLATTERER. Boy I wished I had remembered this one in my courting days!!

Other good stories from this book include “The Fox and the Stork, The Donkey and the Lion’s skin” The Fox without a Tail, The Wolf and the Ass and finally The Dog and his Reflection.

I have just started to read this book to Luke who is only four and a half years old, so he is a little young but he does enjoy the stories, although this book is lacking in pictures. I believe it is a good book for children as it does get them thinking about the stories told. After I read “The Lion and the Mouse” to him he sat and thought about it and said. “ Did the lion think the mouse could not help him because he wa
s small, but he could really because he has sharp teeth that could bite through the rope, and are they friends now”? Well it has certainly got Luke thinking and learning without realising it.

The book I have recently bought was published by Paragon in 2000 and only cost me £2.99. BARGAIN.

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