The history of fables

I started writing fables for my children when I made a promise to them that I would tell them a story a day. Through these fables, I wanted to offer them many surprises and also inspire them to become entrepreneurs of the common goodn.

The first three fables were tested in 1991 in Medellín, Colombia, and also in Mexico. They very quickly received the support of United Nations Development Program (UNDP).

It is thanks to this that the mayor of Curitiba in Brazil, the most ecological city in the world, decided that all children and teachers should have access to fables. It was at this time that pedagogy was structured around five intelligences. While 12 fables were completed, 150 teachers were trained in pedagogy. In turn, they trained 6,000 teachers to present the fables to 120,000 children. The work carried out with children from the slums allowed them to discover how to produce electricity using waste on site!

This is how those responsible for the Center for Education of ministry of ecology and environment Chinese people discovered my work. I was then asked to do a test in schools with the translation of 36 fables and the training of 2,000 teachers. After very positive results, theAcademy of Sciences decided to expand the experiment to 5,000 schools across the country. Estonia then became the first country in Europe to train hundreds of teachers in the pedagogy and to adopt fables in schools.

It took me 33 years to finish writing the 365 fables! In 2023, the entire collection is available in 795,000 schools Chinese greens, and the fables are in the hands of thousands of children around the world.

Children are a powerful force for change in our society. If there is anyone who can change parents' behavior, it's children!

When children are excited about a topic, parents should not only listen, but follow them! It is therefore up to us to lead them to discover the grandeur of nature, the creative spirit within them, their intelligence, their emotions, as well as their ability to dream and act.

Fables provide many concrete solutions to change the world now. This is why inspiring children by working with fables means changing the world with a immediate impact !

Reading fables has changed the lives and destiny of thousands of children who have become eco-entrepreneurs...

And it’s only just beginning!

Gunter Pauli

Katherine BachBorn in Colombia in 1974, she is a mother of three. Although she trained as a lawyer specializing in climate change issues, she has been an artist all her life. 

Every evening, Katherina tells her children Gunter's Fables. She begins to put them into images and will then contribute to the illustration of hundreds of fables. 

Over the past decade, she has met inventors, scientists, and entrepreneurs who have inspired the fables. She has also visited numerous projects around the world that served as the basis for these stories. This experience has given her a deep understanding of the context of each fable. 

Katherina's work combines the passion and expression of Latin America (where everyone has a heart) with European precision and style (where every species is meticulously researched). Having also lived in Asia and Africa, she strives to create a universal style for children, taking into account the specific local context of each fable.

Her dearest wish is that all children have the opportunity to travel the world and learn from others, just as she was fortunate enough to do.

Discover 3 retrospective videos of training for Gunter's Fables in China

Some illustrations from old editions of Gunter's Fables