Pride stories

It is worth saying plainly, because parents notice and wonder whether something has gone wrong with the site. The Hare and the Tortoise runs six minutes and The Tortoise and the Hare runs seven. Both are retellings of the same fable, traditionally credited to Aesop in the sixth century BC, and both suit ages three to seven.

The same thing happens with the frog who wants to be an ox: The Ox and the Frog and The Frog and the Ox are two tellings of one fable. Reading a pair on consecutive nights is one of the few ways to show a young child that a story is a thing somebody tells rather than a thing that simply exists.

Which of each pair to read first

Take the shorter one first in both cases. The second telling is more enjoyable when a child already knows how the race ends, because then they spend it watching the hare rather than waiting for the result.

The classic pride story needs two characters: one who boasts and one who quietly does not. Aesop almost always gives the second role to somebody plainer.

The Vain Jackdaw borrows feathers and loses everything. The Peacock and the Crane sets beauty against usefulness in seven minutes for ages six to ten, and The Peacock and the Fox plays the same hand more gently. The Fox and the Crow is the one where being flattered is the weakness, which is a subtler lesson and worth pointing out.

The three-minute option

The Emperor’s New Clothes is the shortest story in this theme and still the best. Adapted from Hans Christian Andersen, it gives the only honest line to a child.

A quieter group argues about strength rather than beauty, and these tend to suit the child who has just discovered they are the tallest in the class.

The Oak and the Reeds is six minutes and the whole argument in one image: the tree that will not bend comes down. The Two Pots and The Fighting Bulls and the Frog both look at what large, careless creatures do to smaller ones nearby.

For a child who has just got good at something

The Hare and the Tortoise is the right story for the week a child first beats you at something, and The Heron at four minutes is the right one for the week after, when the winning has become a habit. Neither needs a word of explanation from you afterwards, and both are short enough to slot in after something longer has already been read.

Not everything here ends in humiliation, and it is worth having one or two of the kinder ones to hand. A child who is currently the show-off in the room does not need forty minutes of people like them being punished.

The Fox and the Leopard ends in an admission rather than a fall. The Fox Without a Tail is four minutes and lets its fox apologise. The Lion and the Statue is really about who gets to tell the story, which is a thought an eight-year-old will chew on for days. The Ugly Duckling sits in this theme as well, and it is the only story here in which being looked at ends happily.

Pride is a branch of hardship and shares most of its cast with greed; the difference is that greed wants to have and pride wants to be seen. For the same fault told through characters rather than animals, try identity. If your child is taking to the fables themselves, our guide to Aesop and his fables explains where they came from and why the tortoise keeps winning.