Aesop's Fables - Library Edition

Ann McGovern has written over 35 children's books, including STONE SOUP; several books in the IF YOU LIVED... series; and SCRAM, KID! (Viking, 1974), which won the Horn Book Award. McGovern spent part of her career at Scholastic, where she created the SeeSaw Book Club. McGovern lives in New York City.

Ricardo Tercio is a Lisbon-based illustrator who worked in animation for years before dedicating his time to drawing. Ricardo has done everything--from ad illustration to book covers, from comics to storyboarding--but his most favorite thing to do is draw creatures. Among other book covers he's created, Ricardo illustrated the cover of Ann McGovern's 2013 edition of AESOP'S FABLES.

First published in 1963, this collection contains 61 of Aesop’s Fables, including both well-known titles like “The Tortoise and the Hare” and “The Boy Who Cried Wolf” and the less familiar “The Wizard” and “Jupiter, Neptune, Minerva, and Momus.” All are told in two pages or less, most with stylized black-and-white illustrations, and each story contains a moral appearing in boldface print at the end. In addition to the table of contents, there is an alphabetical index that will be helpful for teachers or readers looking for a specific fable. The interior design of this slim volume has an old-fashioned feel, and it is possible that the gray background panels on which the stories appear may make it difficult for use by students with visual impairments. Even so, these fables would be well utilized in a classroom setting in support of the Common Core standards and may lead students to seek out further Aesop retellings. Grades 2-5. --Suanne Roush