In this elegantly designed volume, more than sixty of Aesop's timeless fables have been carefully selected, humorously retold, and brought gloriously to life by four-time Caldecott Honor-winner Jerry Pinkney. Included are the Shepherd Boy and The Wolf, the Lion and the Mouse, the Tortoise and the Hare, plus many other charactersand moralsthat have inspired countless readers for centuries. With more than fifty magnificent full-color illustrations, this handsome edition is a must for every bookshelf. Kindergarten-Grade 4-A visually appealing selection of 61 fables that mixes the well known ("The Fox and the Grapes," "The Tortoise and the Hare") with some that have been nearly forgotten ("The Mermaid and the Woodcutter"). In tone and format, this book is reminiscent of early 20th-century Aesop collections for children. Like Arthur Rackham and Milo Winter before him, Pinkney accompanies the stories with a blend of full-page paintings and smaller illustrations. As in those earlier collections, his text uses ele-vated language and an extremely formal sentence structure. While such loftiness is appropriate for a "classic" Aesop collection, with this edition it becomes a bit of a stum-bling block. Unfortunately, Pinkney's intro-duction doesn't give a reason for the text choices or supply sources. Morals are at-tached to each fable and for the most part they are the time-honored ones. Using a mix of watercolor and colored pencil, Pinkney's illustrations of animal characters are fairly realistic while his depictions of humans lean toward the stylized. The artist's masterful use of watercolor is most evident in his pictures of the animals. Highlights include the dou-ble-page spread that accompanies "The Lion and the Mouse" and the full-page illustration for "The Town Mouse and the Country Mouse." While the narrative style occasion-ally gets in the way of sharing aloud and its tone is sometimes at odds with the more re-laxed tone of the art, this handsome title is still one of the best of the current crop. Denise Anton Wright, Alliance Library System, Bloomington, IL Copyright 2000 Reed Business Information, Inc. Gr. 2-4. An acclaimed illustrator has set himself an ambitious task: retelling and visually reinterpreting 60 of Aesop's traditional tales. And he has succeeded brilliantly, bringing vivid new life to these ancient fables by creating pencil, colored pencil, and watercolor illustrations that are subtle and delicate in color but dynamic and dramatic in composition and in size. Pinkney is particularly successful at investing his animal characters with personality and panache, but his human characters also come alive on the page. Beginning with the illustrated endpapers, every page of this beautifully designed, lavish book is a delight for the eye and an invitation to the imagination. Happily, Pinkney's text proves equal to his art. His language, though formal, is subtly witty and begs to be read aloud, a fitting tribute to the oral tradition of the tales themselves. This first-rate edition is as artful, witty, and wise as old Aesop himself, and it will also stand the test of time. Michael Cart Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved Jerry Pinkney is the Caldecott Honor-winning illustrator of The Ugly Duckling, John Henry, Mirandy and Brother Wind, and The Talking Eggs. He has received the Coretta Scott King Award four times, was the 1998 U.S. nominee for the Hans Christian Andersen Illustration Award, and has received four gold medals and two silver medals from the Society of Illustrators. Mr. Pinkney lives in Croton-on-Hudson, New York. Product Details: Reading level: Ages 9-12 Hardcover: 96 pages Publisher: Chronicle Books; 1st Ed. edition (September 1, 2000) Language: English, ISBN-10: 1587170000, ISBN-13: 978-1587170003 Product Dimensions: 11.6 x 8.6 x 0.5 inches, Shipping Weight: 1.7 pounds (View shipping rates and policies,Average Customer Review: 4.2 out of 5 stars See all reviews (10 customer reviews) Amazon Bestsellers Rank: #53,214 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)