Aesop's Fables: Volume One

Item

Title
Aesop's Fables: Volume One
Description
2012 Aesop's Fables: Volume One. Two CDs. 20 stories. Various narrators. Kingston, RI: AudioGO. $9.95 online, Jan., '09.

The special value of this set lies in the gifted British narrators and expansive development of the storylines. The actors employ various voices within each fable and have sound effects and occasional musical background to help them. I listened to the first two fables on each disc. In this version of TH, the hare runs back to tell the tortoise that the race has started! He then announces that he will take a nap, apparently near the starting line. "Slow and steady is sometimes better than fast and flashy." In OF, one of the mother frog's 247 children tells her of the ox. She is overweight and hates exercise. She does not make it all the way to see the ox, but whizzes around like a balloon and lands at the ox's feet. Her mistake relied on her perception that "No creature in the pond is bigger than me." The wolf in WC spends most of his time thinking of food. He would love to try eating the moon and stars if he could. A fishbone gets stuck. This version of the story thus cleverly uses the river to introduce the heron as the wolf's savior. "I didn't bite your head off: that is your reward!" The "hee-haw" of the donkey in DLS gives him away to the fox. This donkey had long wanted to be something else. The other animals had laughed at him before and now they do again. In something of a surprise, the other animals tell the donkey "We like you just as you are."
Source
$9.95 online, Jan., '09.
Date
2012
Subject
Audio-Visual
Compact Disks
Single CDs
The Tortoise and the Hare
The Ox and the Frog
The Wolf and the Crane
The Donkey in the Lion's Skin