Squids will be Squids

Squids will be Squids by Jon Scieszka and Lane Smith.

Ilham borrowed this book from the school library and I had enjoyed it as much as he did (maybe even more than him, since I understood the sarcasm).

Its foreword went like this:

Fables have been around for thousands of years. And it's no wonder. Because thousands of years ago people were bright enough to figure out that you could gossip about anybody - as long as you changed their name to something like "Lion" or "Mouse" or "Donkey" first.
Aesop is the guy most famous for telling fables...
[and he goes on telling abt Aesop]
...
These [fables in the book] are beastly fables with fresh morals about all kinds of bossy, sneaky, funny, annoying, dim-bulb people. But nobody I know personally.
Really.

Moral: sometimes the names are changed to protect the not-so-innocent.
heh heh

And the afterward goes like this:

You have just finished reading fables about all kinds of bossy, sneaky, funny, annoying, dim-bulb people .. i mean animals.
"What fun," you are thinking.
"I should write some of those myself," you are thinking.
But before you get started, it just occured to me that you might want to know one more little bit about Aesop.
Aesop used to tell this one fable about a real bossy jerk "Lion" who ruled a city. When the real bossy jerk guy who ruled Aesop's city heard this fable, he didn't like it.
So he had Aesop thrown off a cliff.

Moral: If you are planning to write fables, don't forget to change the people into animals and avoid places with high cliffs.

One of my favourite stories in this book is the one titled "Straw and Matches":

It was the end of summer vacation. Straw had done everything he could think of. He was bored. So we went over to play with someone he had been warned to stay away from.
"Let's play checkers," said Straw.
"Okay I'm the red ones I get to move first I get two moves and you get one," sain Matches.
"Forget it," said Straw. "Let's play ping-pong instead."
"Okay I get the good paddle you stand on that side I get to serve first and you have to close one eye," said Matches.
"Never mind," said Straw. "Maybe we should just watch TV."
"Okay you sit over there on the floor I'll sit on the couch I get the remote and we have to watch my favourite video," said Matches.
"I think I hear my mom calling," said Straw. "I'd better go."

Moral: Don't play with matches.
hm... maybe I could give writing fables a shot ;)