![]() ![]() It starts out with two duck sisters arguing about whether they will go to the pond by their usual route or try something new. Meanwhile, in the second entry, Lobel has added a twist of sorts, possibly for a joke but it's counterproductive. "If you look at me closely you will see that I am making a bow," says the Beetle, whereupon King Lion bends over and, top-heavy with jeweled crown and medals, loses his balance. And so? He simply stays in bed and turns "a very pale and sickly shade of green." Even the moral is redundant: "Without a doubt there is such a thing as too much order." The third fable is another platitude in story form: a little Beetle topples an imperious Lion King who demands respect. Lobel begins with the static portrait of a foolish crocodile, who prefers the patterned flowers on his bedroom wallpaper to the tangled profusion of his wife's real garden. The illustrations could be animal companions to the human figures for Gregory Griggs (1978), Lobel's nursery rhyme collection but these suffer for having less to illustrate. But there's not a jot of wit, wisdom, style, or originality in these 20 flat and predictable items. ![]() ![]() One might expect that the creator of Frog and Toad could, if he chose, give us fables with some subtlety and psychological depth. ![]()
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