There’s nothing better than a story about talking animals and the Panchatantra has 5 books of them! A little like Aesop’s Fables, the Panchatantra is a collection of moral tales, all featuring animals to push the message home. Because what better way to learn a lesson than to have an adorable mouse teach you it?! Oh boy! Originally written in Sanskrit, the Panchatantra is the most translated work to come out of India.

It all starts by telling the story of how the author Vishnu Sharma came to a kingdom where the king’s three unruly sons needed a teacher. Sharma agreed to teach them for free and told them the stories he would record in the Panchatantra. It contains 5 books - one about losing friends, one about winning friends, one just called “On Owls and Crows” (ultimately about war and peace), one about losing what you’ve gained and a fifth on hasty actions. Each one contains several shorter fables within and you can actually see the origin stories of some of the tales that turn up in the collected works of the Brothers Grimm.