Fibber's Fables: Stories for Children

Title

en_US Fibber's Fables: Stories for Children

Description

en_US Richard H. Boytim

Creator

en_US Boytim, Richard H. See all items with this value

Date

2016-01-25T19:28:35Z

en_US 2002-10

en_US 1977

Date Available

2016-01-25T19:28:35Z

Date Issued

en_US 1977

Abstract

en_US In his preface, Boytim explains that his fables are simply Aesop's stories retold in today's language for today's boys and girls. There is a difference. I have given them a Christian lesson and tried to illustrate biblical teachings by the fables (9). The first of twenty-seven numbered stories is the Aesopic fable of the bat and the battle of the birds versus the beasts. It is well told. Both sides call to the bat, but he refuses both. Before battle can ever start, the owl persuades both sides to stand down and celebrate instead. Then the bat finds that he is excluded from the celebrating. Boytim quotes Joshua: Choose this day whom ye will serve. MSA has Farmer Jones walking his donkey Jennie to the county fair, where she won a prize last year. Boytim's lesson: Seek to please the Lord only and always and never mind what other people think (16). The Man with Two Wives is turned into the story of three skunks, one white, one black, and one striped (17). The boy who cries wolf becomes a teasing daughter who makes up stories of crises. SW is told in the poorer version (28). The Satyr in Aesop's story becomes a game warden in Boytim's. The lion grown old has become a cat who reads his will to those who want to come close and listen…. Some stories stretch a bit, as when the countryman with a squealing pig becomes a schoolchild with a singing canary (38). I do not know the Aesopic pattern for one of my favorites here, The Fable of the Stuffed Owl (52). Two perpetual critics visit a taxidermist's shop and criticize his work on an owl, who promptly bites the finger that has just pointed at him! The companion startled by a bear goes into a car rather than up a tree; in fact he just watches from there when he could drive to help his isolated friend (58). The fox announcing universal peace becomes the neighborhood bully. The face without brains is now a carved pumpkin. The miser's buried treasure becomes a young woman's unworn diamond necklace. I had avoided reading this book for some time. I presumed that it was tangential to this collection at best and that it probably presented anything but fables. Now I like what it does with Aesop's fables.

Identifier

en_US 889650160

en_US 5029 (Access ID)

uri

http://hdl.handle.net/10504/80623

Language

en_US eng

Publisher

en_US Horizon House Publishers

en_US Beaverlodge, Alberta, Canada

Subject

en_US PZ8.2.B6662 Fb 1977 See all items with this value

en_US Aesop See all items with this value

en_US Title Page Scanned See all items with this value

Type

en_US Book, Whole