Arctic Aesop's Fables: Twelve Retold Fables

Abstract

This is a fine book. The full-page colored illustrations are lively and directed at key moments in the fables. But two things make this book particularly good. The first is the keen adaptation to arctic animals. The second, even more impressive, is the lively, coherent tellings of the fables. Fowler has thought them through and presented them in cogent fashion. The Arctic Fox and the Raven is a good example. The fox here first praises the fox's feathers. He then wonders whether the raven can move as elegantly as his appearance suggests. He is suitably impressed when the raven moves about. I don't suppose it is possible that your voice could match your looks…. makes just the right approach, I think. In another well-thought through adaptation, the raven finds a jar half buried in the ground. Choosing both a jar and half-burial are helpful to this fable. The illustration matches the telling perfectly. One of the more fully transformed fables is titled The Arctic Ground Squirrel and the Sandhill Crane. Again the illustration matches perfectly: a terrified ground squirrel looks from so high above that he cannot recognize what he sees. Fowler's telling invites the reader into the ground squirrel's experience, which indicates that flying is not everything it is cracked up to be! Another full transformation turns an ant into a mosquito, a hunter into a fox, and a pigeon into a goose -- and comes off perhaps more successful than the Aesopic original. This fine book suggests that 2013 is off to a great start!