What young readers will find in these inventive fables are not lessons about necessity being the mother of invention or look before you leap, but more practical concerns for the modern world such as do not believe everything you see on TV, breakfast is the most important meal of the day, and just because you have a lot of stuff do not think you are so special. Some of the fables you need to think about to get to the real point, such as the moral "Don't play with matches," which is really about something even worse than matches (i.e., people you are warned to stay away from). Throughout the book you will find a constant onslaught of wicked humor (the grasshopper's history assignment is priceless) and even if it over the heads of many young readers, they will understand the jokes down the road when they return to this book. After all, the morals of fables are supposed to be timeless, even if they were just made up for this 1998 book.
Most of the stories are told about animals, from frogs and squids to elephants and slugs, but there are also stories involving things like a tongue and a BeefSnakStik (complete with registered trademark). Smith's illustrations are creative and his wife, Molly Leach, provides the exotic design for the book, which will provide appropriate visual stimuli to go with all the morals. The end result is that "Squids Will Be Squids" tells contemporary fables in a contemporary way, and if you have a complaint about the use "squids" as the plural for "squid," then remember to read the fine print of this tongue-in-cheek volume (okay, in the fable about the hand, foot and tongue the tongue is obvious out of the cheek, but that is a different point entirely). Young readers will no doubt be inspired to come up with their own fables, and this book even includes solid advice on how to do that as well.
