FABLES

A large collection of fables for children from the ages of twelve to ninety-seven. Thoroughly illustrated to the point where the graphic aspect is as important as the literary content. Within it there is a trilogy about a widening circle of friends that begins with a lion and a mouse, and grows to include a snake, a buzzard and a scorpion. The relation among them starts confrontationally, but develops into a form of tolerance and friendship.

The scorpion finally observes, "What a bunch of friends I've picked up. I guess they're all right, but they're so ugly!"

There's some politics in Fables, including the story of a cat that fantasizes being Henry Kissinger, a mechanical penguin that finally resolves Russia's tendency towards anarchy, an extra-terrestrial fable about religious intolerance in another planet . . . and much more.

The spirit is Aesop's, except that he couldn't write or draw pictures, which made creating fables so much harder for the old man.