Caldecott Monday: Fables

[osprey_archer]

Arnold Lobel is most famous for his Frog & Toad books (shout out to my fellow Frog & Toad fans!), but Fables is the one that he won the Caldecott Award for in 1981. It's fun! I thought it might be just a retelling of Aesop's fables, but actually Lobel has invented new fables of his own, which I rather enjoyed. I think my favorite is about the cat who spent a whole day fishing without catching anything, progressively moderating his dreams of a giant fish dinner with lemon juice and butter sauce down to a tiny little guppy with just a driblet of lemon - only to catch a gigantic fish just when he was about to give up.

The moral? "All's well that ends with a good meal." Hard to argue with that!

Some of the morals are more serious than that ("A child's conduct will reflect the ways of his parents") and some of it I'm not quite sure I agree with - "When one is a social failure, the reasons are as clear as day" - because I think that is the sort of thing that is only clear to everyone else. Of course the Crane doesn't want to invite the Pelican back to tea after the Pelican spilled the sugar and the cream and gobbled up all the cookies, but just as clearly the Pelican has no idea that this is why, as he sighs, "I seem to have no friends at all." Oh Pelican. Maybe you should have at least offered to help clean up your spills.

The illustrations are charming - very Lobelian, for lack of a better term. There's one story with frogs where the frogs do indeed look very much like Frog of Frog and Toad, which as you can imagine makes it rather alarming when the silly frogs get eaten at the end. ("The highest hopes may lead to the greatest disappointments." I guess there's nothing as disappointing as getting eaten by a snake.)

Comments

[evelyn_b]

Frog and Toad! Hey!

Getting eaten by a snake may be disappointing, but the disappointment only lasts a short time. For real disappointment, you need to survive to a ripe old age.

Poor Pelican! I hope someone sits him down and explains the subtle link between "eating all the cookies" and "no friends."

[osprey_archer]

Perhaps someone has tried to explain the cookies = friends link, only for Pelican to eat all the cookies while they were at it? "Pelican! What was I just saying?" cries the altruist, and Pelican gazes upon them blankly, because he was too busy thinking sadly about his lack of friends to listen.

[evelyn_b]

Oh, Pelican. :(

Some people are like that. Maybe Pelican will grow out of it in a few years, or three ghosts will visit during the night and help him work it out for himself.

[osprey_archer]

YES. THE THREE TEA PARTY GHOSTS WILL COME TO HIM. One will take him to the tea parties of the past where he has eaten all the cookies, another will take him to a tea party present where all the birds he would like to be friends with are happily sharing cookies, and one takes him the future where... it seems like overkill to send Pelican to see his future unmourned grave when all he's done wrong is hog cookies. Maybe the Ghost of Tea Parties future takes him to see contrasting tea parties, one where he has learned the gospel of cookie-sharing and one where he eats all the cookies and monopolizes conversation with his complaints that he has no friends.

[vcmw]

So many stories could be improved by a visit from the three tea party ghosts. I am very much in favor of this plan.

[thisbluespirit]

I guess there's nothing as disappointing as getting eaten by a snake.)

This seems pretty valid.

[osprey_archer]

It does put all other disappointments into perspective. Ice cream scoop just fell off its cone on your foot? "Oh, well, at least I wasn't eaten by a snake."