Customer Reviews

A First Book of Fairy Tales

5 star:		(10)
4 star:		(7)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

It is as if a fairy waved her wand and these illustrations appeared! Julie Downing discovered her desire to illustrate children's books when she was studying at The Rhode Island School of Design. Her characters have believable personalities and the page of art on the first page of The Little Mermaid is ethereal.

Mary Hoffman has written more than 70 books for children and has great powers of observation to bring humor to all her stories and retellings. She lives in Oxfordshire, England, and has three daughters who were brought up on a healthy diet of myths and legends of which she and her husband have a extensive collection. Her goal in writing this book was to chose the best-loved and most well-known fairy tales from European tradition.

The stories in this collection strive to show the consequences of greed, pride and vanity. They also tell how love comes from a kind heart. These are the stories you will remember forever because they are so classic. They also teach that good is rewarded and selfishness is punished. Storytelling has played a role in developing character in children for a long, long time. Originally, fairy tales were not just for children...and to tell you a secret: "I still love them!" These stories are easy to read out loud!

In this collection you will find:

Cinderella
The Selfish Giant
Rapunzel
Jack and the Beanstalk
Sleeping Beauty
The Little Mermaid
The Frog Prince
Beauty and the Beast
Diamonds and Toads
The Twelve Dancing Princesses (never had heard of before!)
The Fisherman and his Wife
The Princess and the Pea (I tried this as a child to see if I was a princess...lol)
Rumpelstiltskin
The Snow Queen

A page about the storytellers tells about Hans Christian Andersen, Madame De Beaumont, The Brothers Grimm, Charles Perrault and Oscar Wilde.

Bring a child's imagination to life with fantasy tales that often have a moral lesson.

~The Rebecca Review

I had been looking for a book of fairy tales for my three year old but most seem to be more appropriate for older children. This book is terrific because it contains many of the best-loved classics - Cinderella, Rapunzel, The Frog Prince, Sleeping Beauty, Rumpelstiltskin, The Princess and The Pea and many others. Also, each tale is just a few pages, pefect for a young child's attention span. It has been fun for me to hear these timeless tales again and they are just as charming as I remembered. My daughter asks for this one again and again.

I really wanted to like this book, since there aren't a lot of offerings for introducing toddlers to fairy tales. I have no issue with the selection of tales, or the illustrations, which are lively and appropriate. But the TELLING of these tales is really poorly done. The authors seem to have confused the idea of telling a story briefly (for an audience with a short attention span) with telling it quickly (by leaving out important details and giving it the "cliffs notes" treatment). These are done the latter way-- which often means the whole point of the tale seems lost! Also, striving for brevity, the authors made bad choices about vocabulary. If these tales are for young children, choose your words more carefully, please. The book throws around vocabulary like "enchanted" without explaining it (i.e. how does one become enchanted, who did the enchanting?) but spells out simpler things in near-baby-talk. All in all, I find this book unreadable to my child. I'm going to put it on a high shelf so neither of us becomes frustrated by it again.

I purchased this book to read with my younger children as suggested by Sonlight. We were very disappointed with it. The illustrations are very nice, but the stories themselves are poorly told. The interesting details of the stories are left out. There are several fairy tale books in the Sonlight p 3/4 list... If you have limited funds, the "Tall book of Nursery Tales" is a much better pick. It is a great size for children and the stories are full of details.

all the stories are 2-6 pages, with lots of word, and some pretty pictures. A great variety of stories, and definitely tempered for a younger reader...i.e. minimal violence, death, etc.

I had been searching for a book of fairy tales that was appropriate for my kids, ages 2.5 and 4. Every book I had found prior to this required heavy "editing" to keep my children from being afraid. My oldest daughter was intersted in fairy tales, but the scarier aspects of them seemed to stick with her for hours -- they were not appropriate bed time stories. The stories and pictures in this book, while still staying true to the original story, are not as threatening or frightening. It truly is a good "First Book of Fairy Tales," as the title states.

My girls love this book and the stories that were chosen. Julie Downing once again has done a fabulous job in her illustrations, we love every book she has ever done!

Each fairy tale is just the right length for enjoying -- not too long, but not too short. The illustrations are easy -- nothing too complicated or overly dark. The tales themselves are not very scary. This is a great first fairy tales book.

This is a great collection of really SHORT classics. Some of them are different from the disney versions so be prepared but they are cute and perfect for quick bedtime reads.

My daughter loves this book. I bought it because of the nice pictures and the wide selection of fairy tales. I made a shot in the dark hoping my 1 1/2 year old would like it and she loves it. My daughter picks up the book on her own and reads it. I only wishs is that the stories were a little more longer. The only one I don't care for is the "Little Mermaid" story it is just weird.