The Boy Who Cried Wolf, also known as The Shepherd Boy and the Wolf, is a fable attributed to Aesop.
The protagonist of the fable is a bored shepherd boy who entertained himself by tricking nearby villagers into thinking a wolf is attacking his flock of sheep. When they came to his rescue, they found that the alarms were false and that they had wasted their time.
When the boy was actually confronted by a wolf, the villagers did not believe his cries for help and the wolf ate the flock (and in some versions the boy). The moral is stated at the end of the fable as:
"Even when liars tell the truth, they are never believed. The liar will lie once, twice, and then perish when he tells the truth."
In reference to this tale, the phrase to "cry wolf" has long been a common idiom in English. The phrase "boy who cried wolf" has also become somewhat of a figure of speech, meaning that one is calling for help when he or she does not really need it. Also in common English there goes the saying: "Never cry wolf" to say that one never should lie, as in the above phrases.
Now your child can enjoy this timeless classic tale in Chinese. The book comes with Chinese characters and the Pinyin (phonetic transcriptions), making it an excellent means of learning elementary Chinese. The book ends with a Q & A, which helps parents engage their children in a discussion about the story.
