Aki Sogabe

This story is about a fox who is hungry, so he travels through the forest looking for food and interacting with many different animals. There is a lesson at the end of each page, learned by either Fox or one of the many animals he meets. My favorite lesson was "No matter how hard you try, you can't hide your true self." which Fox tells himself after coming across Donkey pretending to be Lion.

I've heard of Aesop's Fables but I'm actually not too familiar with them but I did enjoy this book. I especially loved the art and the straight-forward narrative.… (plus d'informations)

Illustrated with Aki Sogabe's cut-paper artwork, Aesop's Fox follows the eponymous hero through the course of his day, as he wanders from place to place. His various adventures are drawn from Aesop's foxier fables, and the observant reader will easily detect: The Fox and the Rooster, The Wild Boar and the Fox, The Fox and the Grapes, The Fox and the Crow, The Fox and the Leopard, The Old Lion and the Fox, and The Too-Fat Fox.

While the idea of stringing Aesop's fox-fables together in one narrative is an interesting one, I'm not sure that Sogabe's project is entirely successful. Maybe I've just read too much Aesop at this point, but I found the narrative rather disjointed. The illustrations, which I have seen praised as the real virtue of the book, reminded me a bit of David Wiesner's work, although I understand that they come out of the traditional Japanese craft of kiri-e (paper-cutting).

Aesop's fables have been retold countless times, so I give Sogabe credit for attempting to present such well-explored territory in a new light. Given what (little) I know of the importance of the fox in Japanese folklore however, I would have loved to see a discussion of Aesop's reception in Japan, and how his foxy-fables are interpreted there. But that's another book!… (plus d'informations)