Famous Fables and Folk Tales Collected from Around the World is a collection of 50 tales retold by Tom Baker. These tales are collected from divergent cultures including, Chinese, Hindu, and Native American. They come from a variety of countries like France, Russia and Africa. Tales thought to have been written by Aesop, Roberts and other “famous” story tellers, containing the same moral lessons of the original. Short in nature, the tales are in a hardback book measuring 5 by 6 ½ inches, with 80 pages. $9.99 for the book from Schiffer Publishing Ltd. This book is a great addition to culture, character, and poetic studies.

Fables and Folk Tales are a great addition to many types of studies. This book would add further exploration to a study of a specific country. Each tale gives its source, whether author or country. We chose to use this in our study of both character, and geography. I would read this out loud to my 9 and 12-year-old and we would discuss what the tale was trying to teach us. I found this to be a great age for the fables and tales, to work on learning about morals and lessons. We also used it to learn a bit about Aesop, and his background and further studies on his fables. Some of the tales were easier for us to find the moral of than others. Some of the morals felt a little looser for interpretation than others. There was not enough information included as to the origin of the fable, other than country. We did look at the country on the map, but that was as far as we could go unless we delved in deeper to the original fable. This book works well for an audio learner who can listen to the parent or older sibling read. There are very few pictures, so a visual learner may not get the moral as well. They are very short however, so a child with a short attention span will still be able to handle it. I recommend the visual learner to draw a picture of the story while they are listening.

This was a great add on to our day, just for fun. It was an easy read, but got the kids thinking about morals and teaching through short stories. We related it to the parables and teachings in the Bible and that helped them realize the character building traits that may have been taught. We enjoyed that they were short, and easy to read, especially for my 9-year-old who can’t sit still that long to listen to a story. I wish that the origin would have been a little more informational. More than just a country of origin, perhaps a more specific region. Also, a year of when they may have been first written would have been nice as well. Value for the dollar is great, and this will be a book that the kids will revisit and look over again.

-Product review by Melanie Schemanski, The Old Schoolhouse® Magazine, LLC, April, 2017