The Hare and the Tortoise: and other Fables of La Fontaine

What do fables, folk tales, fairy tales, tall tales all have in common? They're wonderfully imaginative stories that tell a lot in a few short pages, that's what! Lucky for you, I stumbled across a colorful collection of fables at my local library! The Hare and the Tortoise: and other Fables of La Fontaine, illustrated by Giselle Potter and translated by Ranjit Bolt is a collection of fables originally adapted by Jean de La Fontaine, a French poet. 

 

A fable is typically a short story where the characters are animals that talk and act like people, and usually ends with a moral lesson. The word fable actually comes from the Latin word “fabula” meaning story. 

Many of these fabulous stories actually started as a collection of stories written in Sanskrit, known as the Panchatantra, for the children of royalty. People thought that these moral stories were so fantastic that many cultures translated them into their own languages to pass on to their children, which brings us back to Jean de La Fontaine. He based many of his fables on the French translations of these stories as well as Aesop's Fables., but made them his own by presenting them in rhyming verse.

 
    As has been the tradition, these fables have traveled the world from culture to culture, even time itself, and have now been reinvigorated yet again by Bolt and Potter in this 19 story collection.

    The book itself starts off with the classic fable, The Hare and the Tortoise, and continues to introduce the reader to many wonderful creatures and moral lessons as you progress through the pages. What really struck me about this book, and was the actual reason I chose it, were the illustrations. The bold and colorful pallet Potter chose for the illustrations draws your hands to the book almost magnetically, and keeps you turning the pages even after you've finished reading! She also utilized the entire space on every page and filled them with color. Because she illustrated it with a paintbrush, you can almost feel the movement created by her brush strokes. This added energy breathes life into the little creatures on the pages, and adds a whole new dimension to the sing-song verses that flow through the book.

     Unfortunately, I did occasionally have trouble getting the verses to sync up, both in rhythm and rhyme, which at times forced me to repeat several lines and twist/force them to fit together. I also found that some of the stories seemed to send conflicting messages with their morals. A few left me with the message that I should definitely not trust strangers, while others seemed to tell me that I definitely should help strangers as they may help me later on. This conflicting message from story to story may be confusing to some, especially children.

     To end on a positive note, I'd like to share a little of one of my personal favorites in this collection titled The Wolf and the Watchdog. This fable is about a hungry wolf and a well fed watch dog who gets all the food and love he could want. The wolf, however, is almost skin and bones, but has one thing the fat little watchdog will never have. If you want to find out what that one thing is you'll have to read the fable yourself, and you'd better use your sing song voice too...it's just more fun that way!

Fancy Nancy

Fancy Nancy, a picture book written by Jane O'Connor and illustrated by Robin Preiss Glasser, is about one little girl's efforts to teach her ordinary family how to be fancy.

Nancy “believes more is ALWAYS better, when it comes to being fancy”, but her family just doesn't understand. Lace-trimmed socks really do help you play soccer better!  Finally after many failed attempts of fancy intervention, she gets the idea to teach her family how to be fancy. With Nancy's help and unique accessories, they are transformed into an extraordinarily posh looking family wearing a plethora of bows, flowers, and feathers.

The illustrations (a fancy word for drawings) in this book are well done and include all the details a fancy person might want to see, including sparkles on the cover! Glasser does an excellent job of showcasing Nancy's creative spirit and glamorous sense of style on each page. To do this, Nancy is the most colorful character on each page, covered head to toe in all shades of fuchsia (Nancy's fancy way of saying purple), while her family and home are composed of simple greys and browns.

The writing style of O'Connor is also wonderfully well done and provides a clear window into Nancy's ornate world, while hitting home with a sweet, simple, family message. As the story progresses O'Connor uses many fancy words to replace the plain ones, and by doing so, breathes more life into Nancy's ornate personality. This use of vocabulary also serves as a great segue into lessons about synonyms and the many wonderful adjectives out there.

Fancy Nancy is a wonderful story for anyone, children and adults alike, needing some fashion inspiration without adding any unnecessary princess ideals, and is just one part of the popular series of Fancy Nancy picture books. So put on your laciest socks, nestle into your coziest seat, and get a little fancy!

Kitten's First Full Moon

Have you ever wanted to reach out and touch the moon or stars? In Kitten's First Full Moon, a Caldecott Medal winner, by Kevin Henkes, a persistant little kitten tries to do just that.

     This picture book is about an inquisitive kitten's first experience seeing a full moon. The story opens with Kitten sitting on her front porch enjoying the night. Through a group of fluttering fireflies, she sees a purrfectly deliciousl bowl of milk hanging in the sky, and tries with all her kitten might to taste it, catch it, and drink it! Will this unlucky kitten ever get her little bowl of milk?

     The illustrations for this picture book contain no color, but instead use muted blacks and whites to envelope the reader in the story's own “colorful” nighttime atmosphere. The simple drawings also complimented the tenacious kitten's story well, with the moon always being just out of reach at the top corner of the book. Once the story is over it will leave you peering outside your window for a wayward kitten on her quest for a nighttime snack.

   

One unique way to utilize this story at home or in a classroom is as a way to introduce readers to the different phases of the moon and what objects each phase resembles to them. Readers could even write their own stories of what they think other animals do on nights with a full moon.

Kevin Henkes is an experienced children's book author, having published his first book at the age of 21. He now has over 30 books under his belt and several awards to boot. His inspiration for this story actually came from a line in a previous book idea that didn't make the cut. Lucky for us, Henkes expanded on this one line to create a wonderful story about Kitten's first full moon.


      Other wonderful stories by Kevin Henkes include the Mouse book series, Old Bear, and A Good Day.

Centipede's 100 Shoes

In Centipede's 100 Shoes, also known as One Hundred Shoes, written and illustrated by Tony Ross, a young centipede decides he needs new shoes to protect his little bug feet. 

As the story progresses the little centipede purchases 100 shoes, because as he states “I'm a centipede, which means a hundred feet.” Once home, however, he discovers that most centipede's don't have 100 feet. Though still excited about finally having shoes, the little bug finds that his new shoes hurt his feet, and so is given socks to wear as well. By the end of the story the little centipede is tired of putting on and taking off 42 socks and shoes everyday. But, what is a centipede to do with 100 extra shoes?

The illustrations by Ross in this picture book are cute and created mainly through water colors. The expressions on the little centipede's face do well at conveying his excitement and frustration, and great care was taken in creating both the background and centipede. There was even a cute little love story going on in the back ground for the alert reader to watch unfold.

This book would make a great introduction to a math or science unit involving bugs for younger children, as it does include a bug fact and number counting at the very end. A reader could extend this idea in math by coming up with different bug combinations that could use up all of the socks and shoes with no cold feet left out. So what are you waiting for? Slip on your socks, tie up your shoes and head out to your local library! You don't have 42 feet!

The Hello, Goodbye Window

Is there a special place in your home where you feel especially connected with your family? For one little girl that place is a window at her grandparents' house; their Hello, Goodbye Window.

In this Caldecott award winning picture book, The Hello, Goodbye Window, written by Norton Juster and illustrated by Chris Raschka, a little girl describes all the magical reasons why this one ordinary window is so special. As she states at the start of the story this special window “looks like a regular window, but it's not.” When she is dropped off at her grandparents' house, she continues her little ritual of peeking into the special window and greeting her Nanny and Poppy. As the story progresses she tells of the many cozy family events that transpire in their house and relates them back to the magic window.

The illustrations created by Chris Raschka are playful and drawn through the eyes of a child. Each page is filled with splashes of color and highlight all the fun the little girl has with her grandparents. Raschka used multiple techniques when creating these illustrations, which encourages the readers eyes to search the page for the different details. The little stories depicted in the writing evoke sweet family memories and would be a great addition to any family's storybook collection.

One way to utilize this book in the classroom is as a writing prompt for students to creatively describe their own special place or people waiting for them at home. This could be in the form of a journal or their own book. They could even draw their own Hello Goodbye Windows using their own memories to personalize it.

                                   Do you have a special place filled with wonderful memories? I know I do.

Other stories created by Norton Juster and Chris Raschka include a sequel to this warm and fuzzy picture book called Sourpuss and Sweetypie.

Free Fall

Have you ever had a dream that was so wondrous and detailed that you wished you could write it all down and share it with everyone? If your answer is “yes”, then you'll enjoy this book, Free Fall, by David Wiesner. This picture book, and winner of a Caldecott Honor Award, fits its genre to a T from cover to cover, with the only words to the story being a poem on the inside jacket. 

The story focuses on a peacefully slumbering boy, who has drifted off to sleep during a midnight reading session. As he sleeps, his bedroom seamlessly shifts from reality to his dream world, where he steps onto a life sized chessboard and is greeted by the king and queen of the land. From there, as he travels through the pages, he encounters amazingly detailed scenes and characters, including a dragon, before gliding into bed from his fantastic dream. 

The creator and illustrator, David Wiesner, does a remarkable job of transitioning from scene to scene with each exquisitely detailed page, and uses the entire page to demonstrate his dreamworld. At the start of the story, Wiesner utilizes the white margin border to symbolize the rigid existence of the real world. As the reader's eyes wander from one page to the next, reality melts into a dreamland between them and expands across to the very edge of the next page with no margin or border to stop it. Each detail on one page slowly transforms on the next and flows to the other side to continue the next chapter of the story. Even the color pallet chosen for this story was somewhat muted, and the drawings themselves were drawn in a slightly hazy way much like a dream.

As an added bonus to this artfully illustrated book, readers have the ability to create their own written story to go along with the illustrations, and expand upon the author's dreamworld in their own imagination. Anyone care to dream a little?

Other award winning stories written by David Wiesner include Tuesday, The Three Pigs, and his most recent publication Flotsam.