Class Activities

• Choose 1 fable. Analyze how three authors choose to illustrate it.
• Prepare to discus the similarities and differences in the illustrations, considering especially when it was produced. In what ways to earlier illustrations differ from later? How?
• What do you think accounts for these differences & the divergence?
• Which illustrations do you prefer? Why? Which would a child prefer? Why?
• Two people must work together.
• Person #1 Randomly choose a fable in one book. HIDE THE WORDS WITH A SHEET OF PAPER
• Person #2 Identify the fable.
• Person #1. Reveal the text.
• Person #2. Were you correct? Why or why not? What’s the relationship between the words and the illustration?
• What are the similarities and differences between Aesop and the Jakata & Panchatantra fables?
• How do the various cultures present the moral and make it interesting & valuable for its readers?
• How do the fables reveals something (political, social, cultural) about the culture that produced it?
• Find examples of fables from different cultures that discuss how to avoid oppression. Discuss their similarities and differences.
• Find examples of fables from different cultures that discuss getting ahead in the world. Discuss their similarities and differences.
• Find examples of fables from different cultures that discuss how "humans" inability to live harmoniously. Discuss their similarities and differences.
• Which fable does Christ’s Sermon on the Mount refer back to? Can you think of any other literary work that makes reference to a fable?

• Who produced the first English version of the fables?
• What does a "classical" text look like?
• R. T. Lenaghan states, "Aesop’s fables have been popular from papyrus to television" (3). Why do you think these fables have survived since the 6^th century B.C.?
• Fables began w/ the oral tradition. Do "we" (and all the cultures before and after us) have a "right" to modify them to suite our needs? Why or why not?
• Should we make fables "fun" for children. Yet, does "sugar coating" them risk obliterating the moral message?
• Most children’s literature has didactic designs. Should children’s stories teach morals? Why or why not?
• Do children actually learn morals from reading / hearing fables? If not, what’s the purpose of children’s fables?

• animal tale that has a moral purpose
• anthropomorphic animals (cartoons)
• help deal w/ Moral & ethical issues
• "Fables, myths, end epics sustain children by helping them to meet some of the critical needs associated with childhood" (Sutherland 205)
• ". . . can give readers a respect for the rules of social order" (Sutherland 205)
• "The fable is a brief narrative which takes abstract ideas of behavior. . . and attempts make them concrete and striking enough to be understood and remembered. . .Whether the characters are human or beasts, they remain coldly impersonal and engage in a single significant ac which teaches a moral lesson" (Sutherland 205)
• Perhaps the fable grew out of the proverb, to dramatize its pity wisdom in story form" (Sutherland 205)
• "Children are made uncomfortable by stories that preach directly, but if they see that the lessons of the of these :fables apply to everyone, they can better appreciate the wisdom and humor of these tales" (Sutherland 208)
• Jean de La Fontaine put it succinctly in the introduction to his Fables Choisies of 1668-94: "A fable consists of two parts which might be termed body and soul; the story being the body and the moral the soul" (Medici Aesop 7)
• "The action is straightforward; there is usually one crucial act of crucial brevity, and there I rarely any lapse of time. Conversely, although the fables are easy to illustrate, the illustrations do not explain themselves, and pictures and the story are bound together. Thus, the fables are bet suited book illustration; they do not lend themselves to treatment on the grand scale, in painting or sculpture" (McKendry 6)
• The fables are not fixed firmly in a time or place, an important reason for their continuing popularity with illustrators. Each artist who treats tem is free to set them in the period in which he feels most at home, or else (which is quire usual) to depict them with no specific location. There are two reasons for this: first, the simplicity of the stories specifies no circumstantial detail. Also and very important, there is no definitive text for Aesop" (McKendry 6)

• translated into Latin = became textbooks
• translated from French to English & published by William Caxton in 1482 in England
• some Indian fables made heir way into Aesop b/c of similar themes
• Boris Artzybasheff edited, illustrated & published the most extensive collection in America
• "Because free speech under the Tyrants was risky business, Aesop is supposed to have used the fables for political purposes, protecting himself and veiling his opinions behind the innuendoes of these little stories" (Sutherland 206)
• James Reeves in his Fables from Aesop points out that the virtues which Aesop praises are not the heroic ones but rather ‘the peasant virtues of discretion, prudence, moderation, and forethought. . . . That is why Aesop. . . has always had the affection and regard of ordinary people" (206)
• "James Reeves in his
• Titles
• The Wind and the Sun
• A Wolf in Sheep’s Clothing
• The Miller, His Son, and the Ass
• The Dog in the Manger
• The Jackdaw and the Buried Plumes
• The Lion and the Mouse
• The Shepherd’s Boy and he Wolf
• The Hare and the Tortoise
• The Goose with the Golden Eggs
• The Grasshopper and the Ants
• Belling the Cat
• The Dog and His Shadow
• The Fox and the Grapes
• The Town Mouse and the Country Mouse
• The Fox and the Crow

• Have students work in pairs.
• identify a. moral / value problem 2is century American children experience
• write a fable of about 200 words to illustrate how a character faces the character problem and learns a "better way"

Panchatantra (Five Books)=oldest Indian fables

• in Kashmir in about 200 BC
• longer & more involved than Aesop (Sutherland 206)
• more for adults than children
• animals are humans wearing animal masks
• based on sacred writings & offer a philosophy of life, not just moral lessons
• philosophical verse interrupts the story; also summarize the story

Jatakas= ancient India

• about the rebirths of Gautama Budda who was reincarnated in his many lives into animals and natural things; so about a man who lives w/ animals in their form and learns from them
• 2-3 thousand!!!
• the adaptations are good for children
• Titles
• The Monkey & the Crocodile
• The Golden Goose (similar to Aesop version)
• The Hare that Ran Away (Henny Penny) Budda’s rebirths

Other Lands

• Titles
• Heron & Humming Bird (Muskogee Indians in US)
• The Story of the Hungry Elephant (Bulu people of West Africa)
• Why wisdom is Found Everywhere (Ashanti Tales from Ghana)
• The Fox and the Thrush (Russia)
• The Mouse and the Rat (Russian)
• The Rooster and the Hen (Finnish)
• Why the Fox Has a Huge Mouth (Peru)
• Androcles & the Lion

Jean de la Fontaine, le fablier

• French
• drew upon Aesop, medieval stories, and invented his own stories (less like the Indian tales)
• he was a poet, so he put them into verse for his country
• the people of the time - courtiers etc- transformed in to animals
• titles
• The Fox and the Goat

Modern Fables

• Titles
• The Blind Man and the Elephant
• The Moth and the Start (James Thurber)
• The Bad Kangaroo (Arnold Lobel)
• The Mouse at the Seashore (Arnold Lobel)

Moral

• Find examples of fables that you consider "outdated" for today’s children & youths. Why do you consider them so? How can you "modernize" the lesson or what new lesson do you think we must teach 21^st century children?
• If you haven’t already chosen a "moral," do so now and consider how you might "teach" it to a 21^st century 6-9 year old.
• Share your idea with the class.

• Read the following: "The Lion and a Mouse" (231), "The Fox and the Goat" (240), "The Dairymaid and her Milk-pot" (241), and any other fable you think employs interesting or significant character development strategies
• Identify 4-5 strategies the authors use for character development.

• How can you develop the character(s) in your fable in a more precise way?

• Read the following: "The Wind and the Sun"(230), "The Lion and the Mouse" (231), "Why Wisdom is Found Everywhere" (237), "The Mouse at the Seashore" (243).
• What strategies do the authors use to develop an interesting plot?
• Refine the plot in your fable.

• Read the first lines of: "The Goose with the Golden Eggs" (232), "Heron & Hummingbird" (237), "Why Wisdom is Found Everywhere" (237), "The Mouse and the Rat" (238), "Why the Fox Has a Huge Mouth" (239), "The Moth and the Star" (242).
• What strategies do these authors employ to hook your interest?
• Revise your first sentence.

• What makes a fable interesting, memorable, and effective? Using a specific fable, identify the strategies you will have to emulate to replicate this effect.

Response to Jennifer’s ?: According to Professor Wittig (a Medieval scholar), the first Western illuminated manuscript was probably made in the 4^th century.