TWO AESOP’S FABLES – Simplified for children: Baba Indaba Children’s Stories – Issue 78

Two Aesops Fables – Baba Indaba Children’s Stories

ISSN: 2397-9607 Issue 78

In Issue 78 of the Baba Indaba Children’s Stories, Baba Indaba narrates two of Aesop’s fables – “The Raven and the Swan” and “The Frogs and the Ox.” These fables have been simplified and rewritten for children and, as per usual, there is an easily understandable moral for children.

 

INCLUDES LINKS TO 8 FREE STORIES TO DOWNLOADS

 

Each issue also has a “WHERE IN THE WORLD – LOOK IT UP” section, where young readers are challenged to look up a place on a map somewhere in the world. The place, town or city is relevant to the story, on map. HINT – use Google maps.

 

Baba Indaba is a fictitious Zulu storyteller who narrates children’s stories from around the world. Baba Indaba translates as “Father of Stories”.

 

eBooks available in PDF and ePub formats. Link: https://play.google.com/store/books/details/Aesop_the_Storyteller_TWO_AESOP_S_FABLES_Simplifie?id=ys8VDAAAQBAJ

THE OX WHO ENVIED THE PIG from Jataka Tales

ONCE upon a time there was an Ox named Big Red. He had a younger brother named Little Red. These two brothers did all the carting on a large farm.

Now the farmer had an only daughter and she was soon to be married. Her mother gave orders that the Pig should be fattened for the wedding feast.

Little Red noticed that the Pig was fed on choice food. He said to his brother, “How is it, Big Red, that you and I are given only straw and grass to eat, while we do all the hard work on the farm? That lazy Pig does nothing but eat the choice food the farmer gives him.”

Said his brother, “My dear Little Red, envy him not. That little Pig is eating the food of death! He is being fattened for the wedding feast. Eat your straw and grass and be content and live long.”

Not long afterwards the fattened Pig was killed and cooked for the wedding feast.

Then Big Red said, “Did you see, Little Red, what became of the Pig after all his fine feeding?”

“Yes,” said the little brother, “we can go on eating plain food for years, but the poor little Pig ate the food of death and now he is dead. His feed was good while it lasted, but it did not last long.”

 

————————-

From: JATAKA TALES

ISBN: 978-1-907256-20-2

http://www.abelapublishing.com/cg_jt.html

 

A percentage of the profits will be donated to UNICEF.

 

 

 

THE FROGS AND THE OX – from Aesop for Children

An Ox came down to a reedy pool to drink. As he splashed heavily into the water, he crushed a young Frog into the mud. The old Frog soon missed the little one and asked his brothers and sisters what had become of him.

 

“A great big monster,” said one of them, “stepped on little brother with one of his huge feet!”

 

“Big, was he!” said the old Frog, puffing herself up. “Was he as big as this?”

 

“Oh, much bigger!” they cried.

 

The Frog puffed up still more.

 

“He could not have been bigger than this,” she said. But the little Frogs all declared that the monster was much, much bigger and the old Frog kept puffing herself out more and more until, all at once, she burst.

 

Moral: Do not attempt the impossible.

————————-

From: Æsop for Children

 

To be published during the summer of 2012

The book will raise funds for CECILY’S FUND, a charity educating and supporting Zambian children orphaned by aids.