Creighton University

This sturdy hard-cover book announces the moral of its fable not only on the cover but on its first story page.  This version has the boy watching sheep near a dark forest.  "It was lonely and boring watching sheep all day" (8).  In this version, the farmers he first summoned "stayed to talk with the boy.  They wanted to be sure he and his flock were all right.  The boy liked this very much" (12).  This boy is thus not the joker often presented in the story.  What is lacking in this version is any indication that the boy laughs at the farmers or owns up to a trick.  It is the very experience of useless summoning that turns the farmers against the boy.  "The hungry wolf had a very good meal" (20).  Besides the strong and simple colored illustrations on right-hand pages, there are appropriate designs beneath the text on the left-hand pages.

This title represents the third of the collection of thirteen that I have been able to find.  This sturdy hard-cover book not only announces the moral of its fable on the cover but gives it the whole first story page.  "When people cannot get what they want, they sometimes tell themselves that what they way is no good anyway."  This may be the most careful and sensible moral I have seen for a fable that receives many quite diverse morals.  Besides the strong and simple colored illustrations on right-hand pages, there are appropriate designs beneath the text on the left-hand pages.  Best among the illustrations may be the final one, as the fox turns away "huffing" with turned up nose.  Then there is a page on Aesop, a page on fables, and a page on author and artist.

This sturdy hard-cover book announces the moral of its fable not only on the cover but on its first story page.  This version for the Americas makes a point that "the maid had learned to carry the pail by balancing it on her head" (8) and, to judge from the illustration, this carrying is seen as something of a feat.  This version goes immediately from chickens and eggs to the blue dress the maid has wanted, which is pictured in high court fashion in the incongruous rustic surroundings on 15.  Her head toss here is to the jealous local girls of her imagination.  In this version, she has to tell her parents what has happened.  In the final picture, as mother explains to her that she should not make plans on things that have not yet happened, a cat is licking up milk from around the maid's shoes.  Besides the strong and simple colored illustrations on right-hand pages, there are appropriate designs beneath the text on the left-hand pages.

This title represents the fourth of the collection that I have been able to find.  This sturdy hard-cover book announces the moral of its fable as the whole first story page.  "Don't pretend to be something you're not, for you'll be found out in the end."  Nancy Harrison does a very good job of making this wolf look like a sheep, as is already evident on the book's cover.  Some versions have the shepherd take this "sheep" for his meal the first day that the wolf is there; this version, by contrast, has the wolf getting fat on eating many sheep.  It is the wolf's plumpness that attracts the hungry shepherd.  There are pages given to reflection, to Aesop, to fables, and to author and artist.  Our first three books in this collection were published in 2011.  Since then, "Children's Illustrated Classics" seems to have become "Storytime Tales."  The Peterson Publishing Company is no longer mentioned, nor is Mankato.