Aesop & Company
Prepared by Barbara Bader
Pictured by Arthur Geisert

This book is wonderful on many levels. Black pen drawings are eminently “copiable”, lessons told are memorable, the introduction is informative, the fables are fantastic for narrating and are also inspirational.

After reading The Crow and the Pitcher (misunderstood by M5 and narrated, as he tried to make sense of the word “pitcher” along the lines of “in the picture - may I see the picture? - a bird tries to get water out of a jug……”) M5 was amazed at the wisdom of the crow and just had to try for himself with a glass half full of water and pile of pebbles. “It worked,” he cried out, almost as excitedly as Archimedes himself…..and he was noticing the same thing; “When I took my hand out of the water it went down as well as when I took the pebbles out. And when I put the pebbles in it went nearly to the very top even though it was only half full.”
Use your head, not just your muscle.
Aesop has given us a new motto for problem-solving!

And not just one, but two; the second for family feuds.

In “The Bundle of Sticks” we are reminded In union is strength.
Knowing that I would turn again to this saying in the days and months to come, I wanted it to be firmly planted in the children’s minds. So I sent them all outside to fetch a stick, just as in the story. Even ER jumped up from the potty and, bare-bottomed, collected the biggest one!
I could see in some of the bigger boys’ eyes that they thought *they* would be able to break the bundle. Fortunately they couldn’t! M5 gave it his best shot:

But it could not be done.
Individually, though, the sticks snapped easily, except for one.
This added a dimension missing in the fable: yes, one or two of us might be stronger than the others and be able to hold our own, but at what expense?
In union is strength. When I see the children quarrelling, I’m hoping I’ll only need to mention the pile of sticks……”If you stay together, no one will be able to do you any harm - but if you quarrel, your enemies will destroy you.”

Anyone read my last post?
According to my stat counter, you have.

Anyone answer my last post?
Nope.

But do I have the answer?
Yes. There they are over at Birds’ Books.
I just *knew* there was a bird in it somewhere!
Pity I was googling *nest*.

So where did I find it?
On my very own blog!!!!

Now to remember why I wanted to look them up again