Fables

Fables is a 1980 picture book written and illustrated by Arnold Lobel. The book contains twenty original fables featuring all kinds of animal characters, from crocodiles and ostriches to pigs, camels, and owls. In 1981 it received the Caldecott Medal for illustration.

Each fable takes up a single page and is paired with a full-page illustration opposite it. Like traditional fables, every story ends with a moral, but Lobel’s tone is playful rather than preachy. His characters are often ridiculous in very human ways: a crocodile obsessed with order, a pig flying through marshmallow clouds, a camel practicing ballet in the desert. The stories quietly poke fun at vanity, stubbornness, laziness, fear, and other familiar flaws without becoming harsh or overly moralizing.

Lobel balances absurdity with calm, restrained compositions, giving even the strangest situations a strangely believable feeling. The result is a book that feels both old-fashioned and slightly odd in the best way, like a collection of miniature stage plays where animals behave suspiciously like people.