{"id":2603816,"date":"2026-05-18T07:13:01","date_gmt":"2026-05-18T11:13:01","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/the-american-book-of-fables-is-an-america-250-roadtrip-from-your-porch-swing\/"},"modified":"2026-05-18T07:15:09","modified_gmt":"2026-05-18T11:15:09","slug":"the-american-book-of-fables-is-an-america-250-roadtrip-from-your-porch-swing","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/the-american-book-of-fables-is-an-america-250-roadtrip-from-your-porch-swing\/","title":{"rendered":"&#8216;American Book Of Fables&#8217; Is An America 250 Roadtrip From Home"},"content":{"rendered":"<aside class=\"mashsb-container mashsb-main mashsb-stretched\"><div class=\"mashsb-box\"><div class=\"mashsb-count mash-medium\" style=\"&quot;\"><div class=\"counts mashsbcount\">22<\/div><span class=\"mashsb-sharetext\">SHARES<\/span><\/div><div class=\"mashsb-buttons\"><a class=\"mashicon-facebook mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/sharer.php?u=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.conservativenewsdaily.net%2Fbreaking-news%2Fthe-american-book-of-fables-is-an-america-250-roadtrip-from-your-porch-swing%2F\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Facebook<\/span><\/a><a class=\"mashicon-twitter mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/intent\/tweet?text=&amp;url=https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/?p=2603816&amp;via=ConservNewsDly\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Twitter<\/span><\/a><a class=\"mashicon-subscribe mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"#\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Subscribe<\/span><\/a><div class=\"onoffswitch2 mash-medium mashsb-noshadow\" style=\"display:none\"><\/div><\/div>\n            <\/div>\n                <div style=\"clear:both\"><\/div><\/aside>\n            <!-- Share buttons by mashshare.net - Version: 4.0.47--><p>The text is a promotional review of *The American Book of Fables* by Matthew Mehan (illustrated by John Folley), described as a large, beautiful family history reader released May 19. It argues that high gas prices make big summer trips harder,so the book offers an option \u201croad trip\u201d experience through American history-using a frame narrative in which animals travel across the contry while embedding a wide variety of primary and past materials.<\/p>\n<p>The reviewer praises the whimsical, illustrated style and the book\u2019s scope, noting that it blends moral tales (including Aesop-style fables with an American tone) with documents such as letters, speeches, memoir excerpts, newspaper clippings, poems, and quotations from classical and religious works. The book is presented as organized for different ages, with read-aloud materials for preschoolers and more complex historical content for older readers, arranged both loosely chronologically and geographically.<\/p>\n<p>While the reviewer personally prefers more straightforward history and admits not loving animal frame narratives, their children do embrace the whimsy and are drawn to the adventures depicted in the illustrations. The review concludes by recommending the book as a meaningful way to celebrate America\u2019s birthday, noting the reviewer\u2019s own plan to purchase additional copies for libraries, schools, and gift-giving.  <\/p>\n<p class=\"readmore\">\n    <button onclick=\"showReadMore()\" id=\"readmorebtn\">Read more&#8230;<\/button>\n<\/p>\n<hr id=\"line\">\n<span id=\"more\"><\/p>\n<div>\n<p>Many families I know are <a href=\"https:\/\/amzn.to\/3YuVZYV\" >cutting summer road trips due<\/a> to the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/kevin-mccarthy-sends-letter-to-members-outlining-americas-declining-condition-under-biden-democrats\/\" title=\"Kevin McCarthy Sends Letter To Members Outlining America\u2019s Declining Condition Under Biden, Democrats\">highest gas prices<\/a> many of us have ever seen. That\u2019s especially sad given this national semiquincentennial should be the year of <em>extra <\/em>roadtrips to visit historical and commemorative sites and activities. The United States has such breathtakingly distinct landscapes, completely unlike any other place in the world.<\/p>\n<p>Even those whose inflation-decimated budgets can still accommodate road trips will appreciate the opportunity to take a special one through history with their children or grandchildren for less than it costs to fill up our best-gas-mileage car in these days of ominous $4.50 gallons. The massive new commemorative volume, <a href=\"https:\/\/sophiainstitute.com\/promo\/the-american-book-of-fables\/#order\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\"><em>The American Book of Fables<\/em><\/a>  by Matthew Mehan and illustrated by John Folley, motors imaginations through America old and new. It\u2019s out May 19, but you can preorder now, and that helps the book gain visibility with other readers!<\/p>\n<p><em>Fables<\/em> is a fanciful, illustrated family American history reader. Mehan surrounds an extremely good collection of original documents and excerpts from U.S. history with a frame narrative \u2014 that is, his original story about a collection of animals going on a quest across America that uncovers and embeds numerous documents, folk tales, and poems old and new. Folley illustrates this quest with beautiful sketches, oils, and watercolors.<\/p>\n<p>This is a book big enough to reflect the United States\u2019 breadth \u2014 more than an inch thick, in a gold-foil-stamped heirloom hardcover. Even so, I had to continually hunt for it among the places my children roam, because everyone from the five-year-old to the fourteen-year-old kept stealing it from my office. Take a look at it with the book trailer:<\/p>\n<figure>\n<p><span><\/p>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"The American Book of Fables: The Trailer!\" width=\"500\" height=\"281\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/f_Abmu6GIaY?start=1&#038;enablejsapi=1#038;feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share\" referrerpolicy=\"strict-origin-when-cross-origin\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p><\/span> <\/p>\n<\/figure>\n<p>Truly, just looking at some of the artwork makes me tear up simply because of the distinctly American beauty it captures. America is a magnificent country, both geographically and in spirit. Just look at this:<\/p>\n<figure><\/figure>\n<p>That vast scope reminiscent of the country this book honors is present not just in the illustrations, but the text. The book reminds me of a grandpa\u2019s scrapbook, if grandpas were the kind of people to keep scrapbooks. It\u2019s a collection of pictures, tall tales, morality stories, witty sayings, poems, and historical documents. They are arranged both in loose chronological order from America\u2019s discovery and in geographical order as the animals set out to cross the country to save parts of it. <\/p>\n<p>Each section is also arranged from read-aloud items particularly for preschoolers through stories and historical documents particularly for older children and adults. It is quite the literary undertaking, an impressive offering of gratitude and reverence for our great country in its 250th birthday year. There\u2019s so much here that it is hard to even start describing it, because each description only touches on a small part of the whole. On the <a href=\"https:\/\/sophiainstitute.com\/promo\/the-american-book-of-fables\/#order\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">book\u2019s order page<\/a>, you can take a virtual look inside.<\/p>\n<p>One of its distinctive components is a series of tales adapted from Aesop with a distinctly American flair. These introduce readers not only to this part of our Western cultural and literary inheritance (bestowed by a likely African slave, no less, for those who are un-American enough to do more than merely notice race) but also expand and thereby illuminate the deep moralism at the heart of both Aesop and America\u2019s core personality.<\/p>\n<div>\n<figure><\/figure>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<p>Americans have always been a Puritan people at heart. Our forefathers sourced this Puritanism from their Christian religion. Today, many contemporaries have distorted it into the heretical, competing <a href=\"https:\/\/kirkcenter.org\/reviews\/identity-politics-as-ersatz-religion\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">religion of cultural Marxism<\/a>. But you can\u2019t understand America or even be an American without understanding and embodying our deep moralism that is Christian in soul, even in apostasy.<\/p>\n<p>Aesop is a great fit for Mehan\u2019s style, because Aesop\u2019s moralism is entertaining, witty, more subtle than a sermon, and wry. It\u2019s the kind of Puritanism that <a href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Bundling_(tradition)\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">practices bundling<\/a> (albeit here thankfully in a completely G-rated form), another very American habitude.<\/p>\n<p>This is an adventure book through the land its readers inhabit: its people, its vistas, even its animals. You can tell Mehan traveled the United States to help write this book. His love, patriotism, and laughter are almost audible in the pages.<\/p>\n<p>His strong sense of humor, storytelling, and adventure, combined with Folley\u2019s lively, majestic illustrations, distinguish this book with a reassuring, teasing, and entertaining fatherly presence. That\u2019s particularly notable in an era in which the feminine is very present in both children\u2019s publishing and history instruction. It\u2019s not something you can get from many other family books available today.<\/p>\n<p>If someone who is inferior to the author and illustrator in craft may be permitted to make a critique, I\u2019ll admit I am not a lover of animal frame narratives. Unlike Mehan, and despite earning an English major with honors at the college where he teaches, I do not have a whimsical mind. (My husband says I have no sense of humor; he may be right, except I do laugh!) I prefer to get my history more straightforwardly, such as from the also extremely good <a href=\"https:\/\/www.encounterbooks.com\/authors\/wilfred-m-mcclay\/\"><em>Land of Hope<\/em> series<\/a>, or David McCullough biographies.<\/p>\n<p>As such, my favorite part of this book is the many <em>wondrous <\/em>historical documents embedded inside. They are letters, quotes, speeches, memoirs, stories, newspaper clippings, and jokes from Americans famous and obscure, as well as selections from the annals of Western heritage that have so greatly influenced the character, ways of life, and thoughts of those who built and maintain our country. These include excerpts from the Bible, Cicero, Pliny the Elder, and so on. Hardly anything is better, in my mind, to develop one\u2019s understanding of and love for the ancestors who have given us the best country in world history, the sacrifices they made to do so, and the habits of mind required for it all.<\/p>\n<div>\n<figure><\/figure>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<p>Happily, my rigid, fact-focused preferences do not seem to have descended (yet?) to my much sillier children, who love whimsy and goofiness. (I do not know how that happened, as their father is also not a very silly man; except he <em>will <\/em>insist on making puns as often as he can. Therefore he gets all the blame.) They are not only not bothered by animal frame narratives, they are positively attracted by the illustrations that show these animals having all sorts of American adventures throughout this large book. <\/p>\n<p>I am sure that is part of Mehan\u2019s artifice. Some of us may want to get \u201cright to the meat\u201d and bypass all the condiments and salad dressings, but others of us take our meat best with the dressing. There is plenty of dressing in <em>Fables<\/em> to go around, and I can testify that it does bring all the children to the table. That\u2019s especially lovely in the moments when I want to share with them something tasty, in this case, for their souls.<\/p>\n<p>Mr. Mehan\u2019s animal world extends to several other <a href=\"https:\/\/www.amazon.com\/Handsome-Little-Cygnet-Matthew-Mehan\/dp\/1505120608\/ref=tmm_hrd_swatch_0\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">lovely picture books<\/a>, including about \u201c<a href=\"https:\/\/www.mythicalmammals.com\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">mythical mammals<\/a>,\u201d that I recommend as baby shower gifts, birthday or Christmas presents, summer reading prizes, and the like. But this volume of Misters Mehan and Folley is best fit for celebrating America\u2019s birthday with those you love best. With it, you can do so in a fitting, breath-taking expedition through time and space without ever leaving home.<\/p>\n<p>Although I received a free review copy, I also <a href=\"https:\/\/www.amazon.com\/American-Book-Fables-Matthew-Mehan\/dp\/B0G1XYVC54\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">preordered another copy on Amazon<\/a> to give to my children\u2019s school library. This will probably be my gift of the year to all our godchildren as well. If you know you\u2019re going to order several, like I am, get them all this week to train the algorithm so others who want to share high-quality, non-propaganda, pro-America history with their families will see it in their recommendations!<\/p>\n<hr>\n<p>      Joy Pullmann is executive editor of The Federalist and the researcher and host for The Federalist&#8217;s <a href=\"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/gop-voters-dont-want-mike-pences-republican-party\/\" title=\"GOP Voters Don\u2019t Want Mike Pence\u2019s Republican Party\">forthcoming lawfare podcast series<\/a>, &#8220;Overruled.&#8221; Her latest book with Regnery is &#8220;<a href=\"https:\/\/bookshop.org\/p\/books\/false-colors-the-flag-of-our-occupation-joy-pullmann\/20707173?ean=9781684515875\">False Flag: Why Queer Politics Mean the End of America<\/a>.&#8221;  A happy wife and the mother of six children, her ebooks include the NEW &#8220;<a href=\"https:\/\/payhip.com\/b\/ZT5Wd\" target=\"_blank\">300 Classic Books for Ages 9 to Adult<\/a>,&#8221; and the bestselling &#8220;<a href=\"https:\/\/payhip.com\/b\/R1JL\">Classic Books For Young Children<\/a>.&#8221;      An 20-year education and politics reporter, Joy has testified before nearly two dozen legislatures on education policy and appeared on major media including Tucker Carlson, CNN, Fox News, OANN, NewsMax, Ben Shapiro, and Dennis Prager. Joy is a grateful graduate of the Hillsdale College honors and journalism programs who identifies as native American and gender natural. Joy is also the cofounder of a high-performing Christian classical school and the author and coauthor of classical curricula.    Her traditionally published books also include &#8220;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.amazon.com\/Education-Invasion-Parents-Control-American\/dp\/1594038813\/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&#038;qid=1486730068&#038;sr=8-1&#038;keywords=education+invasion\">The Education Invasion: How Common Core Fights Parents for Control of American Kids<\/a>,&#8221; from Encounter Books.<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<p><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Families are skipping summer road trips as gas hits record highs, despite the semiquincentennial calling for more history visits<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":519,"featured_media":2603817,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mo_disable_npp":"","fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/thefederalist.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/Book-Cover-Featured-Image.png","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[48191,79839,79840,79841,62756],"class_list":["post-2603816","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","tag-250th-anniversary","tag-american-road-trip","tag-book-of-fables","tag-folklore","tag-travel-story"],"fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/thefederalist.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/Book-Cover-Featured-Image.png","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2603816","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/519"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2603816"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2603816\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2603820,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2603816\/revisions\/2603820"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2603817"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2603816"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2603816"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2603816"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}