You will never see war the same manner after reading this extraordinary retelling of an ancient Greek fable about a tragically unnecessary battle between mice and frogs. With haunting illustrations, this small masterpiece ranks with Animal Plantation as one of the best parables of human foibles. Originally published in 1962, The Battle from the Frogs and the Mice tells in phrases and pictures a vintage tale of the foolhardiness of war. When Crum-snatcher, a Mouse, cautiously mounts the back of about The Fight of the Frogs as well as the Mice: A Homeric Fable Puff-jaw, Ruler from the Frogs, to explore the Frogs’ pond, the Mouse matches with a disaster which quickly brings both nations into mortal issue. The course of this tempest in a teapot is usually formulated with wit to assume heroic proportions, and the battle of this small world turns into the storyplot of wars through the age range.

George Martin offers made an imaginative, free adaptation of a fable originally ascribed to Homer, but now believed to have been discussed three hundred years after him by an unknown author. The book’s occasions are brilliantly depicted from the drawings of Fred Gwynne, a flexible musician known for his part as Herman Munster in the sit-com strike The Munsters. Gwynne’s haunting and unsparingly illustrations portray this chronicle from its pastoral starting to its bitter end. Together, Martin and Gwynne have made a reserve of grim joy for adults and young readers alike.