Les Fables de La Fontaine pour réfléchir
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Authors
de La Fontaine, Jean
Pelisse, Laetitia
Issue Date
2010
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Type
Book, Whole
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Abstract
This is a fine book! It works from thirteen of La Fontaine's best known fables. For each there is a four-page spread, as is indicated in the T of C on 5. The first pair of pages presents La Fontaine's text and a humorous full-page colored illustration of the fable. In FC, for example, the crow looks quite glum while the fox runs off excitedly with a full Camembert-like round of cheese in his mouth. The next two pages present a standard set of good elements: a short statement of the moral in La Fontaine's words; an explication of the moral with an example; a set of questions engaging reflection on the moral and often challenging the extent of its applicability; a What do you think? section labelled Conclusion; and a game of some sort with the fable. The latter section might ask the young reader to fill in words of a related proverb or explain a proverbial image associated with the fable. If I were a young person, I would find this book highly engaging. I am older and I find it engaging! Mazzari uses humor effectively to enliven his illustrations. The heron has the snail balanced on his snout (11)! The horse sits chomping clover while the ass suffers at the summit of a high hill (14). In perhaps the best illustration of the book, the fox stands on the arms of a wobbling chair to reach his paw into the vase while the stork enjoys his food. His vase by the way has a wider mouth and a see-through neck, so that we can see his beak at work finding food at the bottom (30). There is a kind of Goreyesque humor in the depiction of the stag whose antlers have been caught (38). Notice the ears silhouetted in the foreground; animals are ready to attack this stag. On 50, the grasshopper uses his guitar to shield himself from the rain as he looks at the ant enjoying a cup of tea in his well protected tower. This is great imaginative work!
Description
Citation
Publisher
Oskar Jeunesse: Éditions Oskarson
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Identifier
7077 (Access ID)