Amazon.com Review
Little Red Riding Hood, the Frog Prince, Goldilocks, Rumplestiltskin... You may remember this cast of characters from story hour. Stand this beloved crew on their heads, stretch them, twist them, and surround them from all sides and you have
Once upon a Fairy Tale, the second star-studded children's book project (following
The Emperor's New Clothes) to benefit the Starbright Foundation for seriously ill children. Twenty-one celebrities from Oprah Winfrey to Barbra Streisand to Robin Williams to Steven Spielberg share their short, unique takes on four traditional stories, teaming up with a dizzying array of artistic talent from Chris Raschka to Anita Lobel. (Among our favorites are Berkeley Breathed's goofy rendition of the Frog Prince and Giselle Potter's odd perspective on Goldilocks.) A full-length audio CD, slipped into a pocket in the back of the book, is chock-full of bedtime stories read by celebrities, complete with delicate musical accompaniments. (Please note: you can't listen while reading along with the book--there are enough discrepancies in the recorded version to make it too distracting.) Brief biographies of the cast of celebrities and illustrators end this eclectic collection. If you never imagined Bruce Willis reading a bedtime story, or Calista Flockhart as Goldilocks (okay, so that's easy), dreams come true here for the pop-culture-entrenched. (Ages 6 to adult)
From School Library Journal
K-Gr 5-This collaborative production, a fund-raiser for the Starbright Foundation, which helps seriously ill young people, takes readers on a romp through four familiar folktales: "Little Red Riding Hood," "The Frog Prince," "Goldilocks and the Three Bears," and "Rumplestiltskin." Celebrities such as Barbra Streisand and Nicolas Cage speak as characters from the stories, each using a distinctive voice, which readers can hear on the accompanying CD or read on a single page. A picture executed by a well-known illustrator faces each page of text. Children who know the classic versions of the stories will appreciate the way the retellers cleverly insert motivation and new contexts, giving old tales a distinctively modern spin. For example, Glenn Close, as Red Riding Hood's mother, worries because her nearsighted daughter went off to Granny's house without her glasses. Oprah Winfrey speaks as Alberta Louise Johnson, Red's grandmother, while Jerry Pinkney portrays her in the moment before the wolf swallows her whole. The best combination of voice, art, and text might be Ted E. "Papa" Bear, a gruff, thousand-pound "family man" whose story is told by Gen. H. Norman Schwarzkopf and illustrated by Chris Van Allsburg. While the book is designed more for private purchase than for library collections, teachers and librarians may find it a useful and entertaining way to teach point of view, and illustration aficionados will appreciate the gallery of widely divergent art. Photographs of celebrities and artists are appended, along with brief summaries of their achievements.
Margaret A. Chang, Massachusetts College of Liberal Arts, North Adams
Copyright 2002 Cahners Business Information, Inc.
