A raven sat on the branch of a fig tree waiting for the fruit to ripen. Day after day he sat there. A fox passing by said to him, "Too much hope will only disappoint you -- and it surely won't feed you."

For 2,500 years, adults and children alike have been listening to the stories of Aesop. Originating in the folk wisdom of rural Asia Minor, these popular fables have been retold, repurposed, and altered over the centuries; in the process, they have sometimes been changed so much that they bear little resemblance to their simple forebears, which ask their listeners and readers to think for themselves, to supply their own conclusions. In this collection, Gregory McNamee draws on the Greek originals to provide Aesop's fables in a form that Aesop himself might recognize -- ones in which fleas and foxes converse, people sometimes learn from their errors, and things are not always what they seem.