The Blue Fairy Book (Andrew Lang's Fairy Books Series)

Planning to read this to my 6 year old and am so excited for her to learn about the classic fairy tales. This paperback book arrived quickly and all the illustrations are so beautifully detailed. Most importantly, all the stories are included! It was hard to find a version that wasn't edited or missing stories.

If you are new to Lang, it started in 1889 with the blue fairy book, and then a series developed, yellow, crimson, orange, red, and so forth.The fact that this series has endured to now is a testament to its quality.As you read, you will discover fairy tales and myths from all over the world, including the well known writers such as Grimm, Andersen, Perrault, and Mme D'Aulnoy.These are not the politically correct stories you might expect, and I believe you will find them useful whether it's for your own reading pleasure, of for passing on stories to children.In fact, if you look beyond the surface of the story, there is a cautionary aspect for children who might get lost, and the evil characters they might meet like the wolf in sheep's clothing, or the boy who cried wolf, or the nice person who offers a gift, but is really a wicked queen in disguise.There may be a young prince who helps a hairy man escape, and the king embarrassed and enraged orders the child to be killed. Naturally the woodsman slaughters an animal instead, and returns those to the king instead as evidence of performance of the deed.There are stories of boys becoming men, being tested by the princess, and doing great deeds to prove their worth. Some characters are wicked and evil, and so the protagonist has to develop resources of their own to defeat the deceit, trickery, jealousy, ambition, and wickedness of the people they encounter.I recommend you start with the blue book, because it has most of the best known stories, for example, Aladdin, Sleeping Beauty, Little Red Riding Hood, Cinderella, Bluebeard, Puss in Boots. You can check the contents of each book at mythfolklore, and even read the stories online.If you are buying Lang, you need to know which publisher, because there are many editions through different publishers, some are good with nice print and pictures, others have small print and no pictures.I highly recommend the Dover edition which has pictures and good size print. These pictures are black and white drawings. The Boomer books edition has good size print. If you want a durable hardcover library style book with a red string bookmark, I recommend the D N Goodchild books. Avoid the compilation book, and buy them individually.One of my favorite stories not in this edition is The wooing of Olwen. It's unusually cruel and bloodthirsty from Wales and King Arthur's court.I know you will enjoy these wonderful stories, and I hope this review was helpful.

My kids & I love this book, but more because they are older and it is for satirical & dark comedy reasons. The stories are often non-nonsensical and have the strangest little rabbit trails in the stories. The author collected these from all different countries and had them transcribed to English in the late 1890s. He was an author & critic, but ironically is best known for these collections of tales he edited.Be warned that the absurdities aside, you should either edit out or discuss with your children the bigotry much more accepted in the 1890s. Little bits here & there jump out of nowhere & it offers a good discussion point for older children, but it could plant seeds of rotten fruit into younger minds.Here are some of the more absurd or unacceptable lessons gleaned from this book:1. Beautiful = Good & Ugly = Evil (unless the person was enchanted to look that way, then go by their original looks.)2. If a polar bear knocks at your door, answer it and if he asks, give him your youngest daughter for financial rewards3. Sometimes animals surprise characters by being able to talk... even surprising other talking animals.4. A dwarf (I.e. little person) always is evil & ugly5. Good can do anything ethically questionable as long as it is to a bad person (i.e. ugly or dwarf). In today's lingo it would be called "Beauty's privilege"6. A good prince will still be sad at the death of his mother even if she is an ogres your father married for money & after failing to cook up your wife (sleeping beauty) & 2 children, dies in a cauldron of poisonous reptiles & amphibians you just stopped her from throwing said wife & children along with the cook & his family into.7. You will be rewarded for shooting an eagle8. The safest place to store jewelry while sleeping is in your mouth, unless you snore (which means you're also ugly & bad)9. Get your own princess by chopping off a cat's head.10. Children are disposable. If you run short on money, abandon your children in the woods & make sure they can't find their way back. When they eventually do, they'll bring you tons of riches while you sat on your bum & did nothing.11. People can still overhear you even if you climb inside an oven to tell it your secrets.12. If someone tells you to avoid something like open a door or closet, be sure to do that exact thing. You'll end up beautiful, wealthy, & married to someone also beautiful.13. If you fail by trying the same approach two times and you only have one chance left, try exactly the same thing again.14. Even if an ogres insists on eating a human, just substitute a farm animal and she can't tell the difference.15. Every female protagonist worth a fairy tale must be "the most beautiful creature on the earth".16. Being black decreases your value as a person... It's a little raw, but I could go on.Some favorite stories:"The Tale of a Youth Who Set Out to Find What Fear Was""The Bronze Ring" <=self-edit black sailors being inferior to white"The White Cat""The Wonderful Sheep" & "The Yellow Dwarf" just for their suddenly tragic endings"East of the Sun and West of the Moon" is best played for friends as it tragically repeats the same lines over & over again until you want to explode. Nothing makes you feel better than having other people suffer the same way.So why do I give it 4 of 5 stars?1. The stories often lack a coherent storyline or are the concatenation of several story-lines in a mash-up. It's an MST3K sort of thing.2. It is pretty black & white how absurd its biases are and therefore is easier to discuss with children that are old enough. It is tougher to discuss the way Disney & other children's media will display the same messages, but more subtly:- Focus on beauty & the distortion of it... particularly in women- Discounting intelligence in women or other races white males- The degrading of other cultures or peoples by playing up stereotypes or placing characters in subservient positions- The laziness of dealing with good & evil by killing off the antagonists- Rationalizing doing wrong: break your marriage vows & have your spouse tortured, maimed, & killed so you can marry the pretty one- Children know better than parents / parents are clueless fools3. The stories often surprised me with the cleverness or just the sudden turns the plot would take.4. Sudden "God in the machine" endings: hmmm, let's suddenly declare a character is an ogre or ogres to tie up loose ends (like disposing a spouse when you want to marry someone else)5. The round-about way people go about things and the effects because they don't actually communicate: the "Three's Company" debacles.6. I'm attracted to dark humor / satire... even more so if it wasn't intended.

... it's not hardcover!I am seriously considering having this book custom bound - maybe after we purchase the others in the collection, we'll look for a bulk binding discount.This introduction to the (colorName) Fairy series is simply fantastic - in every sense of the word. The stories included are wonderful, the language is complex, immersive, and engaging. This collection includes the original images as well.These are rich stories collected from the world over and recorded before the concerns about political correctness watered down the morals and consequences for bad behavior. These stories enthrall our children and teach - in very memorable ways - that there is a price associated with the choices we make.The stories are a little long for VERY small children - our three year old is learning to sit through them - but it is totally worth it. Our seven and four year olds just LOVE these stories.I can give this collection the highest of recommendations and without hesitation recommend this to anyone who appreciates great storytelling.

A gorgeous book, lovely illustrations and has everything I remember from my mom's copy. One thing I'm not keen on is my copy had a few pages that were cut folded, so they unfold out in a strange shape that sticks out from the other pages. I keep them folded. Looks great in the bookshelf or on a nightstand.

A wonderfully bound book containing some of the most amazing fairy tales!

Saiba que essa edição é uma daquelas pequenas da Barnes and Noble e não do tamanho tradicional. Eu não me atentei as dimensões descritas aqui na Amazon e acabei me decepcionando um pouco quando o livro chegou.O livro é excelente no que se refere à estética. Possui mais de 3 ilustrações para cada um das 29 fábulas e, em algumas, também oferece "plates" (ilustrações que ocupam uma página inteira).O tamanho da fonte é confortável e possui diversos detalhes estéticos impagáveis. Uma edição que dá orgulho de ter na estante.No que se refere as fábulas propriamente ditas, possuem escrita clara e simples, mas utiliza-se de uma vasta variedade quanto ao vocabulário. É um ótimo livro para quem está estudando inglês, uma vez que é muito útil (possui diversidade de palavras que não se vê em outros gêneros da literatura, principalmente quando se fala de objetos e situações da vida cotidiana).

He adquirido muchos libros a lo largo de mi vida, pero este se lleva el crédito de estar en el top de los diez primeros sin lugar a dudas. No lo compraría para ningún niño a menos que sepas que lo cuidaría como oro en paño, lo catalogo como un libro para coleccionistas y bibliófilos.

The BN collectible editions are superb. The details are amazing.