Creighton University

Here is a new series just developing.  Its particular approach is to insert comments between verbatim lines of La Fontaine's verse fables.  I find the method apt and effective.  Construing poetry -- surprisingly -- baffles students today, who are learning the lyrics -- that is, the poems -- for songs by the tens every day!  I am surprised that this is a print-upon-demand book printed in the USA.  This first booklet in the series presents five fables.  The artist's specialty, already clear on the cover, is with eyes, not least the eyes of a character like the tree who watches the silly fox give up his cheese to the crow.  The art is lively throughout.  OF, the first fable, has apparently the ox answering the frog, whereas I think La Fontaine has the frog's sister doing the answering.  The moral for GA takes a "both.and approach": we should work and we should respect artists.  The two other fables here are TMCM and "La mort and le bûcheron."  I look forward to the coming volumes!

Here is a new series just developing.  This collection already has the French version published one year earlier.  Its particular approach is to insert comments between verbatim lines of La Fontaine's verse fables.  I find the method apt and effective.  Construing poetry -- surprisingly -- baffles students today, who are learning the lyrics -- that is, the poems -- for songs by the tens every day!  I am surprised that this is a print-upon-demand book printed in the USA.  This first booklet in the series presents five fables.  The artist's specialty, already clear on the cover, is with eyes, not least the eyes of a character like the tree who watches the silly fox give up his cheese to the crow.  The art is lively throughout.  OF, the first fable, has apparently the ox answering the frog, whereas I think La Fontaine has the frog's sister doing the answering.  The moral for GA takes a "both…and approach": we should work and we should respect artists.  The two other fables here are TMCM and "La mort and le bûcheron."  I look forward to more volumes in whatever language!  The explicators do a good job here of helping English readers understand what is going on in La Fontaine's world, a world very different from ours.