Customer Reviews

Frederick and His Friends: Four Favorite Fables (Treasured Gifts for the Holidays)

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This book has 4 great stories of Leo Lionni: Fredrick, Swimmy, Fish is Fish, & Alexander and the Wind-Up Mouse, and it comes with a audio CD of all these 4 stories. Also these stories have all original pictures without being ommitted. (Not like "Fredrick's Fables: A Leo Lionni Treasury of Favorite (16) Stories"-out of print) Therefore, you can read the way Lionni had drawn and written. If you like to enjoy Lionni's all pictures for each of the 4 stories, this is a great book to buy.

This is one of my son's favorite books who is 4 (along with The little house & Arnold Lobel books). He originally got Frederick for his birthday from a friend of ours which he immediately fell in love with. He asked me to get him more of the frederick books. I looked up Leo Leonni and found out that he had several other books that won the caldecott medal/honor. Since it was more economical and easier to maintain to get 4 stories in 1 book, I bought this book. The weird thing is that my son wants me to read the 3 stories that won the caldecott honor/medal (he loves swimmy, frederick & alexander and the wound up mouse) but he doesn't care much for fish is fish. I guess the caldecott panel really know their stuff!? I got teary reading Alexander and the wound up mouse. It is a fable that is made very sweet & shows what friendship is about and that the grass is not always greener on the other side.

I first encountered Leo Lionni's books was when my daughter was 8-month-old. I remember reading to her the story of "Frederick" and instantly fell in love with it. Now my daughter is 5, and we still read the story together. I am glad that this collection also includes the stories of "Swimmy" and "Alexander and the Wind-Up Mouse"--another two of my daughter's favorites. "Fish is Fish" has very nice and imaginative illustrations, but the story is not as endearing as other three. Nonetheless, it's a must-have collection for its enduring stories are, I consider, the classic.