Fairy Tale Land: 12 classic tales reimagined

by Kate Davies, Lucille Clerc (Illustrator)

Overview

Fairy Tale Land opens the gates to the magical land where all the fairy tale characters live. Get lost in this visually stunning, oversized gift book that features all the well-loved stories, and immerse yourself in their enchanting world!

The tales are expertly retold, perfect for bedtime, and each story is followed with an exquisitely illustrated, detailed map of its neighbourhood. You can drop into Hansel and Gretel’s cottage, explore the palace from Beauty and the Beast, and dive deep under the sea with the Little Mermaid. What wonderful things can you find in your favourites’ homes?

Beautiful, stylish, and vibrant illustrations adorn each page, as the magical text transports readers to faraway lands of mystery, fantasy and magic. Stunning full-page artworks and the detailed maps of the lands in which these stories take place mean this title will be lovingly pored over time and time again.

The stories include:

• The Little Mermaid
• The Nutcracker
• Cinderella
• The Jungle Book
• The Wizard of Oz
• Hansel and Gretel
• Robin Hood
• Treasure Island
• Beauty and the Beast
• The Snow Queen
• Alice in Wonderland
• Snow White

The exquisite artwork and captivating text make this spellbinding anthology a gift to treasure for all generations.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780711266650
Publisher:	Frances Lincoln Children's Books
Publication date:	10/26/2021
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
Pages:	112
File size:	50 MB
Note:	This product may take a few minutes to download.
Age Range:	7 - 10 Years

About the Author

Kate Davies was born and brought up in north-west London, UK. She studied English at Oxford University before becoming a writer and editor of children’s books. She also writes comedy scripts and is the author of the best-selling novel for adults, In At the Deep End, which published in 2019. Kate lives in east London with her wife. 

Kate Davies was born and brought up in north-west London, UK. She studied English at Oxford University before becoming a writer and editor of children's books. She also writes comedy scripts and is the author of the best-selling novel for adults, In At the Deep End, which published in 2019. Kate lives in east London with her wife.

Editorial Reviews

10/04/2021

Strange realms and enchanted kingdoms recur in this appealing collection of gently updated classics that encompasses mostly European fairy tales and stories, including Robin Hood, “The Snow Queen,” and Treasure Island, Davies’s retellings deftly preserve the originals’ sense of magic while recontouring plots to better suit modern sensibilities—in “Beauty and the Beast,” the Beast needs friendship, not love, to break his curse, and in “The Little Mermaid,” the mermaid chooses to return to her family, spurning the shallow prince: “I have my own palace, thank you.” Clerc’s intoxicatingly detailed, lushly colored illustrations are richly botanical, offering a riot of blooms and branches, with protagonists of varying skin tones. Each tale is capped with a full spread landscape depicting the story’s setting, even if distracting asides offer unnecessary commentary (“Cinderella’s sisters are mean and cruel—avoid them”). Casts a charming spell all its own. Ages 7–10. (Nov.)

Publishers Weekly

“Entertainingly spun.”
 —Kirkus Reviews

“Casts a charming spell all its own.”—Publishers Weekly

From the Publisher

2021-08-18
Twelve classic tales retold, in an oversized album, with each one’s setting depicted as a broad and verdant landscape.

Despite the book’s size and expansive perspectives, the interior art is the underachiever here, Clerc tending toward partial glimpses of widely separate buildings and scattered figures amid vast swathes of flowers and obscuring vegetation. On the other hand, many characters, including Dorothy and Snow White, are depicted as people of color. Davies obligingly alters the evil queen’s line to “Mirror, mirror on the wall, who’s the most beautiful woman of all?” and picks up the slack in other ways too, mostly in terms of gender equity. Along with embedding nods to other tales (naming Beauty’s beast Prince Caspian, for instance), she tucks in sly tweaks: “Dorothy felt as though she were living her life in black and white.” Though the stories are all the same four and a half pages in length, which is an achievement in itself, as the originals range from “Hansel and Gretel” to Treasure Island, they are admirably coherent and, often, entertainingly spun. Readers will cheer on Cinderella as she “boogie[s] around the dazzling ballroom” and later answers Prince Charming’s marriage proposal with “One day, maybe. But in the meantime, do you have a spare room in your palace?”

Sumptuous at first glance, but the reading will make a more lasting impression than the looking. (Illustrated stories. 7-10)

Kirkus Reviews