Children are notoriously difficult to write for, and rightly so, but they deserve more consideration than we’re often inclined to give them. While younger ones do tend to love the repetition that adults find mind-numbing (my sister and her husband recently had a competition to see who could recite more of my nephew’s bedtime books from memory), children are much more discerning readers than we give them credit for. This discernment shouldn’t be abused, however, and it is possible to overdo the humor, metaphor, and message while having the best of intentions.
In that vein, I was disappointed with Matthew Mehan’s recent offering through Sophia Institute Press, The American Book of Fables. As someone who appreciates an entertaining fable retelling (see Guy Wetmore Carryl’s “The Sycophantic Fox and the Gullible Raven”) but who hadn’t been especially impressed with Mehan’s earlier works, I was curious to see what this new volume would hold.
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