Book excerpt: This collection of passages for Grade 4 provides students with close reading practice. Some stories never get old. Their messages are as timely today as they were many moons ago when these fables were first told. What can you learn from the goose with the golden eggs, the fox and the crow, the four oxen and the lion-and other fable favorites? Read the tales in this book and decide for yourself why these lessons are still important to living a good life in the twenty-first century. Also included are places to pause and reflect on the text and opportunities to respond to the reading.