Princess Tales Around the World

February 1, 2017

K-Gr 4-There is so much more than happy endings when it comes to fairy tales. Rapunzel's prince loses his eyesight when trying to rescue her. The little mermaid never marries the prince; instead, with a broken heart, she goes back to the sea after her sisters relinquish their hair to the sea witch. Furthermore, Scheherazade employs her ingenuity to save her life over and over again, and Princess Moonlight understands that she must leave her parents and home to embrace her destiny. Maccarone adapts nine classic tales. Her rhyming text is eloquently shaped, flowing naturally and surrounding readers with rich vocabulary. Moreover, the adapter retrieves characters from classical literature and her own imagination to create a powerful fairy-tale rendition. Elementary school children will be fascinated by the dense texture of the expressionist illustrations, where emotions are emphasized through contrasting colors, taking the prose beyond words. The book has an interactive seek-and-find element, which teachers can use to animate a class unit on fairy tales with a projector. However, the small font makes this title better suited for a private storytime at home than a setting with a larger audience.

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