Fables and Life's Little Lessons: Drawings and Poems by Charles Mayrs
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Authors
Mayrs, Charles
Issue Date
2008
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Type
Book, Whole
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Abstract
This book was a wonderful chance find on a visit with friends to a favorite old bookshop. With such a limited circulation, it certainly was a stroke of fortune for me that I found a copy of this book! The colophon page at the book's end has full details on the paper and printing process -- and even a profile of the author/artist. The artist's foreword describes these offerings as fantasies created for the enjoyment of all ages. Each has a small lesson which encourages everyone to have a wiser, safer or more considerate life. I count twenty-four fables and a final epigram from the author/artist: Every lesson in life, good or bad, is always a lesson worth learning. A typical fable features a bright title on a right-hand page, a verse text on the verso, and a brightly colored, pasted-in illustration on the right-hand page facing that text. These illustrations are about 4½ x 6. Their coloring is amazingly bright! They resemble Oaxaca figurines. For starters, enjoy Sammy the Spider, who spun a web to catch a cow but got a pig instead. Several stories have an ecological bent, like The Moose and the Goose, in which the armed human being is the bad guy. As for sheer illustrations, my prize goes to Timmy the Toad, who is about to suffer disaster from the bicycle tire apparent at the edge of the picture. The prize for the best moral goes to The Carefree Penguins: If you swim with the sharks, be prepared for biting consequences. Securely in the fable genre is the story of The Elk and the Bighorn Sheep, who lock horns and stay that way forever. Mayr's statement that these stories are written in prose in surprising, since each story is presented in rhyming verse.
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Publisher
Black Stone Press
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Identifier
7223 (Access ID)