Frederick's Fables: A Leo Lionni Treasury of Favorite Stories - Bruno Bettelheim - Children's Books, Frederick, Tico, Swimmy, Cornelius

Frederick's Fables: A Leo Lionni Treasury of Favorite Stories with an introduction by Bruno Bettelheim. Meet Frederick, Tico, Swimmy and other of Lionni's beloved characters.

Written and illustrated by Leo Lionni. 1985, stated first edition thus, second printing. Pantheon Books, a division of Random House.

Leo Lionni (1910 - 1999) was a distinguished artist, illustrator, and designer by the time he wrote his first children's book at age 50. He wrote more than 40 books to become one of the most influentual children's book authors and illustrators of the 20th century. He continues to awaken and delight children around the world.

Frederick's Fables includes 13 of his most iconic stories.

Frederick
Fish Is Fish
Alexander and the Wind-Up Mouse
The Biggest House In The World
Geraldine, the Music Mouse
Tico and The Golden Wings
Cornelius
Swimmy
In the Rabbitgarden
Theodore and the Talking Mushroom
A Color of His Own
The Greentail Mouse

From the New York Times obituary:

"Leo Lionni, who introduced an introspective sensibility to children's literature through the metaphorical characters Frederick, Swimmy and Little Blue and Little Yellow, died on Monday at his home near Radda in the Chianti district of Italy. He was 89.

Mr. Lionni was an artist, magazine art director, graphic designer, children's book illustrator and author. He had many careers, including Futurist painter, architectural critic for the Italian magazine Casabella, advertising designer for the N. W. Ayer agency in Philadelphia, graphic design consultant to Olivetti in Milan and the Museum of Modern Art in Manhattan, art director for Fortune, Print and Panorama magazines and professor of design at Cooper Union."

New York Times Oct 17, 1999.
Nytimes.com/1999/10/17/nyregion/leo-lionni-89-dies-versatile-creator-of-children-s-books.html

In honor of Banned Books Week 2017, Leo's daughter Annie Lionni told Publisher's Weekly the story of what inspired her father to write his first children's book, Little Blue And Little Yellow, and the fascinating backstory of his work on behalf of the United States for the 1958 World's Fair in Brussells.

"Leo’s exhibit was edited and then entirely cut from the Brussels World’s Fair, but the following year, he began the first of what eventually grew to be 40 books for children, all allegories, talking about a more perfect world. All of Leo’s stories are about communities. They all contain a problem, and they all look for solutions. A few of the problems he addressed in his books—like many of our own here in the United States—do not get solved in his stories, but most of them do. Like the pavilion, his stories are as much about the process as anything: identify the problem; deal with the problem; rejoice that the problem has been solved."

Publishersweekly.com/pw/by-topic/childrens/childrens-book-news/article/74918-leo-lionni-s-unfinished-business.html

The introduction by noted child psychologist Bruno Bettelheim explains children's fascination with picture books and Lionni's enduring popularity.

Condition*: Fine/Fine. This is a first edition, second printing of a collection of previously published works.

*Based on guidelines of the Independent Online Booksellers' Association.

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