Æsop's Fables: A Version for Young Readers

These are the stories that have been teaching children how to live for over two thousand years. Originally attributed to Aesop, a former slave in ancient Greece, these brief tales of wolves, foxes, lions, and ants have shaped Western moral imagination like nothing else. In this 1915 edition adapted by J.H. Stickney for young readers, the ancient wisdom remains intact: the wolf will always find an excuse to devour the lamb, the fox will always scorn what he cannot reach, and the ant will always prepare for winter while the grasshopper sings. Each fable delivers its moral not through lecture but through story, which is precisely why children have loved them for millennia. The prose is simple enough for a child to read alone, yet the lessons reverberate into adulthood. This is the book that gave us expressions still in daily use, the sour grapes, the lion's share, the boy who cried wolf. It is the origin text for how we teach right and wrong.