Animals Like You and Me

Fables retold, after Jean de La Fontaine

This picture book contains 18 stories retold after the fables of Jean de La Fontaine, the great French writer and thinker, together with 45 color illustrations. La Fontaine’s way of writing, in verse and in the language of a French intellectual of 17th century, is not easily understandable to a young reader of the 21st century. However, the point of each fable is still valid today. Therefore, the writer as well as illustrator of this book, Stanislav Marijanović, has adapted La Fontaine’s texts into short stories suitable for the present day young reader. Among them are such famous fables as The Rabbit and the Tortoise, The Cricket and the Ant, The Lion and the Fly, Two goats on a Plank-bridge and others, all adapted to a contemporary style.

In the introduction, the author explains what fables are and briefly describes la Fontaine’s work.