Still more fairy tales
03 Mar 2011 Leave a Comment
in Books
Yes, we’re still reading fairy tales! Next week will be our last week of fairy tales for a while, but the kids and I are enjoying reading them.
Our first book this week is Rachel Isadora’s The Princess and the Frog – I apologize for the tiny picture, it’s the only one I could find online and I’ve already returned the book to the library so I can’t take my own photo:
Isadora’s illustrations are soft watercolors, which is sweet but frankly I prefer more detail. (Her style works better for me in The Little Mermaid, which we also read this week, possibly because I can imagine things looking slightly blurry underwater.) The story is the familiar tale, minus any menacing elements – the princess drops her ball in a well, the frog retrieves it, and she is obligated to keep her promise to let him stay in her home. The spell is broken and voila, he’s a prince! Cue happily ever after.
Our next tale was Paul O. Zelinsky’s Rumpelstiltskin:
His oil paintings are just gorgeous, and the book is also appealing because of the beautiful language he uses to tell the story. I think Zelinsky is my new favorite children’s book illustrator!
Our final fairy tale this week was another of Rachel Isadora’s – this time the aforementioned Little Mermaid:
She’s managed to retell this sad story in a beautiful way, though of course the mermaid’s visit to the sea witch may frighten some little ones, and the fact that her sisters try to get her to kill the prince in order to save herself in the end is a bit gory; but the ending is sweet, and the scary parts were not overwhelming, even for my sensitive boy.
Stay tuned for more fairy tales next week!
