Showing posts with label Animal Fables. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Animal Fables. Show all posts

Sunday, February 22, 2015

Fables and Learning Stories

Short tales designed to teach moral lessons and values in order to transmit a cultures accumulated wisdom. Aesop, John La Fontaine. Typically have animal characters referred to by the name of the animal. Moral at the end of the tale, many collections are beautiful illustrated, also individual fables are available.


            Learning stories also teach cultural values and moral lessons but are longer, more complex texts that feature both human and animal characters, morals not explicitly stated, different listeners often gain different insights from learning story.


Aesop's Fable: The Tortoise and the Hare, read by Levar Burton:



La Fontaine's Fable: Short Summaries of 10 Fables





Sunday, February 1, 2015

20th Century British Children's Literature




•1926 Winnie-The Pooh by A. A. Milne
•1937 The Hobbit by J.R.R. Tolkien
•1941 First children’s paperback books published
•1950 The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe by C.S. Lewis
•1964 Charlie and the Chocolate Factory by Roald Dahl
•1997 Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone by J. K. Rowling

The Tale of Peter Rabbit




•1901 animal story written and illustrated by Beatrix Potter
•Translated into 36 languages and is one of the best-selling books of all time
•Generated other merchandise over the decades, including dolls, games, wallpaper, clothing, etc.

Nick Jr. Peter Rabbit printables


The Beatrix Potter Society Information





  • 1894 The Jungle Book by English author Rudyard Kipling
  • Kipling lived in India for many years
  • Animal stories with moral messages
  • Has influenced many modern books, including Neil Gaiman’s The Graveyard Book
1895 Jungle Books


Pinocchio


  • 1883 The Adventures of Pinocchio by Italian author Carlo Collodi
  • Originally serialized
  • First translated into English in 1892
  • An icon of modern culture
  • The original story is quite gruesome
  • One of the most reimagined characters in children’s literature


The Complete Tales of Uncle Remus


•1881 collection of African-American folktales collected by Joel Chandler Harris, a journalist in Post-Reconstruction Atlanta
•Animal stories, songs, and oral folklore
•Similar to Aesop’s Fables and the stories of Jean de La Fontaine
•Uncle Remus is a fictional character who is a kindly old former slave who serves as a storytelling device, passing the folktales to the children around him
•Written in an eye dialect to represent a Deep South Gullah dialect
•Were well received at the time of publication but by the mid-20th century the stereotype of the old uncle and the dialect were seen as demeaning







Fables Choisies, mises en verses


  • 1668 by Jean de La Fontaine
  • First translated into English in 1734
  • 124 fables in six books
  • Dedicated to Louis, the Grand Dauphin, the 6 year old son of Louis XIV. 
  • Adapted from Aesop, Babrius, and Phaedrus, famous ancient fabulists


Aesop's Fables


Animal fables with moral messages

1484 William Caxton’s Subtyl Historyes and Fables of Esop was first translation in English
Click here for the complete tales.





The Patachantra

Animal fables in prose and poetry with moral from India, composed in Sanskrit about 200 AD.

May be the oldest collection of stories for children.


Click here for Complete Stories.