Review Detail

Philip Pullman is one of my favorite authors. If you haven't read His Dark Materials: The Golden Compass, The Subtle Knife, The Amber Spyglass (Everyman's Library (Cloth)) trilogy you better correct that mistake soon.
I was very excited when I saw that Pullman did a retelling of Brothers Grimm fairy tales, I knew that he would do them justice.

This anthology consists of 50 fairy tales handpicked by Pullman from a larger collection of stories that Brothers Grimm collected.
I must shamefully admit that I liked Pullman's retellings even more than the original. He did not edit out strange and odd parts of the stories but his versions are much easier to read, without archaic language constructs. Also, one thing that I most appreciated, he shortened out sometimes boring repetitious parts.
At the end of each story we have notes where Pullman explains what changes he made to the original story. He even treats us with a little bit of historical background: when it was first published and a list of similar stories and adaptations. These notes were very interesting to me, but if you don't like them you can always skip them with no harm done.

This book has something to offer to everybody. It can be savored a tale a day or devoured in one afternoon. You can read it to your kids before bedtime or you can read it alone.
Whatever pace you set or audience you choose, if you are a lover of classic fairy tales you will definitely enjoy this book.

I recommend this book to: young and old fans of classic fairy tales.

Disclaimer: I was given a free ebook by the publisher via NetGalley in exchange for a honest review.