The Æsop for Children

The Fox & the Grapes

Æsop

Illustrator: Joyeeta Neogi. Available at: https://kathakids.com/fables/sweet-grapes/. Accessed on August 4, 2023. All rights reserved.

A Fox one day spied a beautiful bunch of ripe grapes hanging from a vine trained along the branches of a tree. The grapes seemed ready to burst with juice, and the Fox’s mouth watered as he gazed longingly at them.
The bunch hung from a high branch, and the Fox had to jump for it. The first time he jumped he missed it by a long way. So he walked off a short distance and took a running leap at it, only to fall short once more. Again and again he tried, but in vain.
Now he sat down and looked at the grapes in disgust.
“What a fool I am,” he said. “Here I am wearing myself out to get a bunch of sour grapes that are not worth gaping for.”
And off he walked very, very scornfully.

There are many who pretend to despise and belittle that which is beyond their reach.

Illustrator: Milo Winter Copyright, 1919, by Rand Mcnally & Company, Chicago.

About the Æsop for Children

Aesop for Children contains the text of selected fables, color pictures, video, and interactive animations, and will be enjoyed by readers of any age.
“Aesop's Fables”—also called “the Aesopica”—are a collection of stories designed to teach moral lessons credited to Aesop, a Greek slave and story-teller thought to have lived between 620 and 560 BCE.
Aesop's fables are some of the most well known in the world and have been translated in multiple languages and become popular in dozens of cultures through the course of five centuries. They have been told and retold in a variety of media, from oral tradition to written storybooks to stage, film and animated cartoon versions—even in architecture.
The fables remain a popular choice for moral education of children today. Younger scholars will be able to trace the origin of aphorisms such as “sour grapes” and “a bird in the hand.”
This interactive book is presented by the Library of Congress, adapted from the book “The Aesop for Children: with Pictures by Milo Winter,” published by Rand, McNally & Co in 1919. This work is considered to be in the public domain in the United States.
Milo Winter’s pictures have been transformed for this interactive book, and now readers can interact with the charming illustrations to see and hear them move: a choosy heron eyes the fish swimming at his feet, a fox swishes his tail, a mouse chews a rope and frees a lion.

Presented by the Library of Congress (US). Available at: https://read.gov/aesop/005.html / https://read.gov/aesop/about.html. Accessed on August 4, 2023. All rights reserved.