Belle Becker SidemanAnmeldelser

An anthology of fairy tales from various places around the world. Reading fairy tales is a great way to learn about distant times and places. I was familiar with a lot of the European ones (Grimms) and some Arabian ones (1001 Arabian Nights), but other regions have their own series of folk tales, equally fascinatingly bizarre.

My mother had this book in her book collection when I was little and through it I discovered that there was much more to these tales than what the Disney versions would have you think. They can be much darker and deeper than they are portrayed on screen. This collection can also introduce someone to more than the standard stories. Because of this collection I think my favorites are "The Goose Girl", "East of the Sun, West of the Moon", and "The Six Swans".

I've read reviews here and elsewhere that say that these stories may have still been simplified a bit, but they are still a vast improvement over the Disney versions. I've yet to get a hold of a copy of the original Grimm or Anderson collections, but because of this book I've fallen in love with Fairy Tales and I can't really fault it much because of that.

I have owned this book now for nigh on 40 years. It was gifted to my parents when I was born. I read it and re-read it and re-read many times as a child and I still enjoy the tales, even if they have been modified to make them more palatable. Even so, my favourite tale is "The Goose-Girl" mostly because of the sentence passed on the servant girl; it was gruesome to this child's mind, but I relished it and though she deserved it. The magic in the tale also captured my imagination, as it did in all the tales.

I doubt I will ever release this book and now that it has been retrieved from solitary confinement in storage, I hope to find a bookbinder to repair its sorry, leatherbound spine and restore it somewhat to its glory days.

The Princess And The Pea is 1 out of 33 fairy tales in The World's Best Fairy Tales: A Readers Digest Anthology. The Princess And The Pea was written by Hans Christian Andersen. It was about a Prince who really wanted to marry a Princess who was truly a Princess. He travelled the entire world but still could not find a true Princess. Finally, during a very stormy night with thunder and lightning, a Princess arrived at the Prince's Castle who said that she truly was a Princess. To prove that the Princess was telling the truth, the Queen got the Princess to sleep on top of 20 eiderdown quilts and 20 mattresses that were all placed on top of a pea. If the Princess can feel the pea while sleeping, then she truly is a princess. The Princess did feel the pea while sleeping which proved that she was truly a Princess. The Prince married the Princess at the end of the Fairy Tale.

This is a very good Fairy Tale. It is exciting the whole way through. I did not expect that the feeling of a pea helps to determine if a Princess is truly a princess. I give the Fairy Tale 5 out of 5 stars based on my review.

I read several of the folktales from this collection and wanted to add it because of its dated quality. The tales have been thoroughly Westernized (Japanese Character pray to God, illustrations are littered with cultural stereotypes. For its time I'm sure this anthology was groundbreaking in its inclusion of other cultures, but today a lot of the then-forward ideas seem more backwards than progressive.

I deeply loved this book when young, due to the vividness of the personal comments on the war from all sorts of people.
Looking at it more objectively, I think it may have a bit of leftist bias (Marx comes out looking very prescient) but overall I still think it is very good.

This is a pretty nice fairy tale anthology to read out loud to children. The language used in this book is rather simple, but it also does a good job of telling the various stories. The one thing that threw me off while reading this volume was that the editors chose some interesting versions of these fairy tales. As a native of Russia, I was particularly thrown off by their version of "The Snowmaiden" - I had never read a version of it with such an unsatisfying ending! So I suppose that one should be aware of the fact that most of the fairy tales in this anthology might differ from their original plot.

I have not read all of this, but there are multiple stories that are the tales you hear when growing up, like Little Red Riding Hood and other such things.

I've had this book since elementary school, I believe this is one volume of a two volume set. It is a great collection of fairy tales. Many favorites are here and many more soon to be.

Some of the stories

Puss in Boots;
The Emperor's New Clothes;
Billy Beg and His Bull;
Little One Eye, Little Two Eyes and Little Three Eyes;
The Red Shoes;
The Steadfast Tine Soldier;
Snegourka, the Snow Maiden;
The Three Little Pigs;
The Shoemaker and the Elves;
Doctor Know-It-All;
The Six Swans;
Dick Whittington and His Cat;
Rapunzel;
Aladdin and the Wonderful Lamp;
The Three Bears;
Rumpelstiltzkin;

My grandmother gave me this book for Christmas in 1969. She would be delighted that I am reading it aloud to two of my boys at night. Tonight's story was The Hedgehog and the Rabbit..so funny.

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