Flower Fables [Hardcover]

Louisa May Alcott (Author)

Book Description

Age Level: 9 and up | Grade Level: 4 and up

This is a pre-1923 historical reproduction that was curated for quality. Quality assurance was conducted on each of these books in an attempt to remove books with imperfections introduced by the digitization process. Though we have made best efforts - the books may have occasional errors that do not impede the reading experience. We believe this work is culturally important and have elected to bring the book back into print as part of our continuing commitment to the preservation of printed works worldwide.

--This text refers to an alternate Hardcover edition.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Written for Ralph Waldo Emerson's daughter, Ellen, when Alcott was 16, and first published in 1855, these six prosy fairy tales were chosen from a 1992 collection, Louisa May Alcott's Fairy Tales and Fantasy Stories, edited by Daniel Shealy; Shealy provides an informative afterword here. Readers meet a cast of elves, fairies, brownies and sprites with such Shakespearean names as Willy Wisp, Moonbeam and Thistledown, and the children who occasionally dally with them. Thinly disguised morality lessons told in an over-upholstered style, they instruct the audience in the importance of various virtues. In "The Frost King," for example, elves resolve to conquer the ice-hearted ruler of winter through peaceable means ("Let us teach you how beautiful sunshine and love and happy work can make you"). More than a little dated, the stories grow tedious with lofty homilies (e.g., "little Annie dwelt like a sunbeam in her home, each day growing richer in the love of others and happier in herself"). Preiss's (The Pig's Alphabet) garish artwork further hampers an emotional connection to the stories. The lack of tonal subtlety is aggravated by a self-consciously multicultural-esque grouping of fairy folk with oversize but misshapen eyes and bizarrely pointed ears and chins. Even the typeface, which has distractingly flowery ligatures, is overdone. All but the most die-hard Alcott fans can skip this one. Ages 5-12.
Copyright 1998 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

Review

Flower Fables is a treasury of six different stories penned by Louisa May Alcott. These old-fashioned fairy tales have been compiled and edited by Daniel Shealy, who has done editing on several Alcott books. The text is very readable, and has magic flavor added via the font's joining together of several letters. Today's children, like many children of the past, will enjoy meeting Alcott's fairies, sentient flowers, and other real and imagined characters. Illustrator Leah Palmer Preiss has filled the book with delightful and interesting fairies and other creatures. The illustrations are bright and full. Readers may want to watch for the bonuses of quotations and tiny portraits of those who influenced Louisa May Alcott. This book would make a good bedtime storybook, and like many tales of old, has good morals that children could take away with them perhaps without even realizing there was a lesson involved. The afterword is also interesting as it shares interesting details about Miss Alcott. For example, she wrote these tales when she was 16. Another bonus at the end of the book is the biographies that go along with the quotations and miniature portraits. -- From Independent Publisher --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Reading level: Ages 9 and up
  
• Hardcover: 120 pages
• Publisher: IndyPublish (May 11, 2002)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1404304363
• ISBN-13: 978-1404304369
• Product Dimensions: 9.6 x 6.1 x 0.5 inches
• Shipping Weight: 13 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (3 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #5,530,591 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Louisa May Alcott was both an abolitionist and a feminist. She is best known for Little Women (1868), a semi-autobiographical account of her childhood years with her sisters in Concord, Massachusetts. Alcott, unlike Jo, never married: "... because I have fallen in love with so many pretty girls and never once the least bit with any man." She was an advocate of women's suffrage and was the first woman to register to vote in Concord, Massachusetts.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

19 of 20 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A beautifully illustrated compilation of fables., June 24, 1998

By A Customer

This review is from: Flower Fables (Hardcover)

This discovery of unpublished fables by Louisa May Alcott should be read by children during their important impressionable years. The illustrations are beautiful and complimentary to the text. While classics of Louisa May Alcott, Little Women and Little Men, are for the early teens, these fables for the preteens tease the imagination in a magical way. This sort of alternative to the upbringing of children by the video media is sorely needed and provided by Flower Fables.

9 of 10 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Many versions vary in illustration quality, December 2, 2009

By 

Brian Villanueva - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Flower Fables (Hardcover)

The stories in Flower Fables are excellent. However, for young children (age 3-5), you really need to include some type of picture on each page. Amazon sells about a dozen versions of the hardback of this book, and color pictures are sadly lacking in most of them. I checked out at least 3 versions from the library before settling on the one I am buying.

If you're going to purchase Flower Fables, my recommendation is the version published in 1998 and illustated by Leah Palmer Preiss. She features full page color illustrations every 3-4 pages, and nearly every page includes some type of color. The introduction is abridged to fit on one page, but the text of the fables appears intact.

Note that Amazon's "Look Inside" feature shows the same book interior regardless of which printing you are ordering.

11 of 13 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Flower Fables, December 8, 2002

By A Customer

This review is from: Flower Fables (Hardcover)

This was the most enchanting book I think that I have ever read. Such beautiful illustrations.