[In the following essay, Pflieger discusses the effect that the use of illustrations has on the interpretation of individual fables.]

With their minimal plots, fables seem a natural choice for picture books. The author and illustrator can embellish the tale and give it a personal touch. In picture books, the main characters in fables lose their anonymity and become more individual. These books stress the entertaining qualities of the tales, though without sacrificing the lessons, which are sometimes even strengthened by the text or the illustrations.

Most of the fables presented singly in picture books are those of Aesop or La Fontaine. Eighteen of the twenty-six picture books I investigated are based on tales from Aesop or on La Fontaine's version of them, two on a story in La Fontaine that does not appear in Aesop, and five on tales from Indian tradition, mostly from the Panchatantra. One picture book—The Hare and the Tortoise and the Tortoise and the Hare, by William Péne du Bois and Lee Po—retells and links together an Aesop fable and a tale similar to one found in the Panchatantra.

Many of these books are retellings of but a handful of fables. "The Miller, His Son, and Their Ass," one of Aesop's fables, is retold in Katherine Evans'The Man, the Boy, and the Donkey, Roger Duvoisin's The Miller, His Son, and Their Donkey, Jean Showalter's The Donkey Ride, Brian Wildsmith's The Miller, the Boy, and the Donkey, and Mary Calhoun's Old Man Whickutt's Donkey. 'The Hare and the Tortoise" appears as three works, illustrated by Brian Wildsmith, Paul Galdone, and William Péne du Bois. Aesop's version of "The Lion and the Mouse" has been illustrated by Ed Young and La Fontaine's version, "The Lion and the Rat," by Brian Wildsmith. "The Town Mouse and the Country Mouse" is retold in the book by the same name illustrated by Paul Galdone, and in a translation of Horace's version, Two Roman Mice, by Marilynne K. Roach. Katherine Evans, in The Maid and Her Pail of Milk, and Ingri and Edgar Parin D'Aulaire, in Don't Count Your Chicks, retell Aesop's "The Milkwoman and Her Pail." The tale of "The Wind and the Sun" is retold in both The Wind and the Sun, illustrated by Margaret Horder, and in The North Wind and the Sun, illustrated by Brian Wildsmith. La Fontaine's fable, "The Cobbler and the Financier," has been retold by Brian Wildsmith in The Rich Man and the Shoemaker and by Marcia Sewall in The Cobbler's Song. Two tales from the Panchatantra also appear in more than one version. "The Blue Jackal" has been retold by Marcia Brown and by Mehlli Gobhai. Shortened versions of "The Monkey and the Crocodile" appear as Paul Galdone's book by the same title and, with different characters, as the second story in The Hare and the Tortoise and the Tortoise and the Hare by William Pêne du Bois and Lee Po.

A few fables seem to have appeared only once as picture books. Katherine Evans retells Aesop's fable, "The Father and His Sons," in A Bundle of Sticks, his "The Shepherd's Boy and the Wolf in The Boy Who Cried Wolf and the Panchatantra tale "The Mice Who Ate Iron" in her book of the same title. Marcia Brown has retold and illustrated "The Mouse and the Hermit," from the Panchatantra, in Once a Mouse … ; Barbara Cooney has illustrated Geoffrey Chaucer's retelling of Aesop's "The Cock and the Fox" in Chanticleer and the Fox. One fable has received attention of a very different kind from creators of picture books. Aesop's "The Grasshopper and the Ant" is the basis of two works which celebrate the grasshopper instead of the ant. In Leo Lionni's Frederick, the mouse who spends his days gathering sun rays, colors, and words instead of food uses these "supplies" to counteract his companions' winter doldrums. In John Ciardi's John J. Plenty and Fiddler Dan, the ant becomes so fearful of wasting food that he eats little of his hoard and grows weak with hunger, while the grasshopper survives the winter to fiddle again in the spring. Creative people, it seems, take issue against the dull, smug pragmatism the ant embodies.

Otherwise, picture book versions of fables stick very close to the basic plots of their originals. When there are differences in plot, they are usually for the sake of a happy ending. Thus, Aesop's short tale of the quarrelling brothers whose father shows them how brittle sticks can be unbreakable if bound together is lengthened in Evans' A Bundle of Sticks to show how the brothers learn to work together and thereby succeed in their endeavor. In the original version of "The Blue Jackal," the jackal who becomes king of the jungle animals when he is accidentally dyed blue is killed when the animals realize that he is not a special creature sent by the gods; in Brown's retelling, the jackal is merely chased away, as he is in Gobhai's version, where he wanders alone, probably to rejoin his jackal pack when the dye fades. Only Showalter follows Aesop's story of "The Miller, His Son, and Their Ass," in which the man and his son lose their donkey in a stream by taking the advice of everyone they meet. Wildsmith follows La Fontaine's version of the story, in which no stream appears; in the other retellings, the animal either does not get dropped into the stream or is pulled out. The disappointing ending of Aesop's "The Milk-woman and Her Pail" is kept intact in Evans's version, but the old woman who drops her eggs in the retelling by the d'Aulaires goes home and realizes that she already has all she needs.

As the fables are translated into picture books, many are particularized. Though some books—for example, those by Wildsmith—have indistinct settings, others have settings that range from ancient Rome (Two Roman Mice) to Persia (A Bundle of Sticks) and the Australian bush (Horder's The Wind and the Sun). Elizabethan England is the setting of Galdone's The Town Mouse and the Country Mouse, and the Appalachian mountains are the background for Calhoun's Old Man Whickutt's Donkey. France seems to be the setting of most of Evans' works, though her The Mice That Ate Iron is set in Spain. Distinct as these settings are, they do not alter the basic plots of the works themselves; they merely provide backdrops for the actions of the characters.

Instead of being anonymous actors in a tale designed to teach, many of the characters in picture book fables are distinct individuals. Sometimes these characters are given names: all of Evans' characters have names, as do almost all the people who appear in Calhoun's Old Man Whickutt's Donkey; Roach's Roman town mouse and country mouse are appropriately named Urbanus and Rusticus. More often, the characters in the picture books are given motivations and personality traits which they do not have in the original fables. Peter, the shepherd boy in Evans' The Boy Who Cried Wolf becomes lonely as he watches the villagers in the valley below go about their work and their play. In Horder's The Wind and the Sun, the sun is convinced that it is the stronger not merely in general principle, but because people look up to it, while the wind is sure it is the stronger because things bend before it; the wind is a sore loser, going off "in a huff when the contest is done. The hare in du Bois' retelling of "The Hare and the Tortoise" is an obnoxious "crybaby-bully" who loses the race because he takes time out to insult everyone he meets, and because he is too fastidious to splash through puddles that dot the route. Galdone's country mouse takes his time deciding to visit the city, for he is as set in his ways as any rural stereotype, while the city mouse is one who looks out for his own best interest, quietly whisking into his hole at the first sign of trouble and leaving his country friend behind. Gobhai's blue jackal is timid on his own but unafraid when he is with the rest of the pack; he is pleased at the terror his blue coat inspires in the jungle animals. In Evans' retelling of "The Milk-woman and Her Pail," Anna sees other girls in the market with fine clothes and boyfriends, and she longs to have these things, too, until her plans are spoiled when she spills her pail of milk. The father in Showalter's The Donkey Ride, based on "The Miller, His Son, and Their Ass," is a man with "a comment for every occasion," and he and his son take to heart the comments others make about them. Though the boy cleverly figures out the motives behind the advice passersby give them, he is obedient and follows his father's sometimes-outrageous wishes. Old Man Whickutt, who owns the donkey in Calhoun's version of the fable, is a good-natured, if slow-thinking countryman glad to finally please the people he meets. This emphasis on character adds to the entertaining aspects of the fables, for it gives us characters to sympathise with.

But while the abstract, anonymous characters of the original fable allow us to focus on lessons rather than character, and while these reworkings have more character development, the lessons are still clear. Often the moral is worked into the story itself, either as a piece of advice one character gives another or as part of the plot. Although Brown's version of "The Blue Jackal" ends with a traditional quatrain about one's true identity, few adapters tack the moral of the fable onto its end. In Young's The Lion and the Mouse, the moral, which appears on the last page, seems to be spoken by the mouse itself. Wildsmith usually works the moral into the last paragraph of text, explaining, for example, that the sun in The North Wind and the Sun achieves by gentleness what the wind's brutality could not, or that the patient rat in The Lion and the Rat accomplished what the lion's strength was incapable of. More often, however, the moral of the fable is worked into conversation. The widow in Chanticleer and the Fox admonishes Chanticleer to ignore flattery after he and the fox have exchanged maxims at the end of their adventure. In both Galdone's and Roach's versions of "The Town Mouse and the Country Mouse," the country mouse explains what it has learned to the city mouse before returning home. In Horder's The Wind and the Sun, the sun cheerfully calls the moral of the fable after the wind, which is rushing off. The men in all versions of "The Miller, His Son, and Their Ass" tell the moral to their companions in a kind of aside.

Details of the plot are also sometimes used to point up the lesson of the story. The cobbler in Sewall's The Cobbler's Song becomes so anxious about the gold he has received from a rich man seeking to trouble him that his happy home is almost broken up. Both picture book versions of "The Town Mouse and the Country Mouse" take care to stress the contrast between the rich, luxurious city food with the plain, simple food of the country, and to emphasize the terrors of the city life. In Horder's The Wind and the Sun, the wind goes overboard in its attempt to tear off the traveler's coat, not only blowing but trying the effect of a rainstorm. In The North Wind and the Sun, Wildsmith emphasizes the wind's destructiveness by describing how it sinks ships, blows the leaves off trees, and frightens animals; and he shows the sun's gentleness through the way it causes flowers to bloom and birds to sing and makes the animals go to sleep.

Rarely, the lesson of the fable is emphasized by what can be called positive reinforcement: that is, by applying the knowledge they have gained, the characters succeed in their endeavors. In a bit of didactic overkill, the quarrelling brothers in Evans' A Bundle of Sticks, having learned strength through unity from their father, apply this lesson to the weaving of a carpet which wins them a prize from a prince; he tells them that they have earned it by working together, and to remind them of the lesson, the brothers hang a bundle of sticks above their shop door, eagerly telling the moral of the fable to visitors (and—again—to the reader).

Half a picture book is illustration, and in some of these works the illustrations emphasize either the moral itself or those elements which are necessary for us to see the moral. In Wildsmith's The Rich Man and the Shoe-maker, the contrast between the happy shoe-maker and the miserable rich man is heightened by their appearances and their pets: the shoe-maker is a kindly-looking little old man dressed in bright clothes and accompanied by cuddly kittens, while the rich man looks hunted and haunted and resembles his Great Dane, which wears a large spiked collar. When the shoemaker receives his unexpected money from the rich man, his paranoia as he tries to hide it is emphasized as all the animals that live nearby seem to be watching him. In Don't Count Your Chicks, the old woman's growing pride in her imaginary possessions and herself is made clear in the fences that dominate the view of her future farm and in the way that she herself overshadows her future husband, looming in front of him in the doorway of their house. The objects she plots to gain follow her as she goes to market, appearing beside the road and in the shapes of the clouds, and, finally, formed as fleeing shapes in the yolks of the eggs she has dropped. As the old woman has learned her lesson, so has her cat, which loses a small mouse in its bid for a larger one. In The Lion and the Mouse, Young emphasizes the moral by emphasizing the relative sizes of the powerful lion and the puny mouse. The lion is at first only a furry landscape over which the mouse runs, and we see the entire lion only when it is in trouble; mostly we see bits and pieces of the lion from a mouse-eye-view. The incongruity of their sizes and their relationship becomes clear on the back cover of the book, where the mouse sleeps on the lion's tail, wrapping its own tail around that of its friend.

Such emphasis on individual rather than anonymous characters, and the working of the moral into the text or illustration, serve to make picture books recounting fables more entertaining than didactic. In some picture books, the lesson is lost: Galdone's The Monkey and the Crocodile and Po's "The Tortoise and the Hare" in The Hare and the Tortoise and the Tortoise and the Hare are more tales of a clever underdog defeating someone more powerful than lessons about giving away what one has gained. But most of these picture books retain the lesson and, in fact, reinforce it by a combination of text and illustration. Perhaps because fables are so strong on text, few of the books go much beyond a simply retelling of the fable, with illustrations. But all emphasize entertainment, with an ancient lesson thrown in for good measure.