The Twelve Dancing Princesses

by Rachel Isadora, Rachel Isadora (Illustrator)

Overview

A Caldecott Honor-winning illustrator gives this classic fairy tale a brandfinew setting!

Night after night, the twelve princesses mysteriously wear out their shoes. But how? The king promises a great reward to any man who can solve the mystery. Rachel Isadora has revitalized and reimagined this well-loved Brothers Grimm fairytale by bringing the story of the twelve princesses to Africa. The unique presentation of this classic tale is sure to enchant readers with its vibrant imagery.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780142414507
Publisher:	Penguin Young Readers Group
Publication date:	11/12/2009
Edition description:	Reprint
Pages:	32
Sales rank:	217,565
Product dimensions:	9.80(w) x 9.80(h) x 0.20(d)
Age Range:	5 - 8 Years

About the Author

Rachel Isadora began dancing at the age of eight. She trained at George Balanchine's School of American Ballet and has danced professionally. Rachel lives in New York City with her family.

Rachel Isadora has illustrated many books set in the world of dance and theater, including Opening Night, My Ballet Class, Swan Lake, The Little Match Girl, and Ben's Trumpet, which received the Caldecott Honor Award and the Boston Globe-Horn Book Honor Award.

copyright © 2000 by Penguin Putnam Books for Young Readers. All rights reserved.

Rachel Isadora began dancing at the age of eight. She trained at George Balanchine's School of American Ballet and has danced professionally. Rachel lives in New York City with her family.

Rachel Isadora has illustrated many books set in the world of dance and theater, including Opening Night, My Ballet Class, Swan Lake, The Little Match Girl, and Ben's Trumpet, which received the Caldecott Honor Award and the Boston Globe-Horn Book Honor Award.

copyright © 2000 by Penguin Putnam Books for Young Readers. All rights reserved.

Editorial Reviews

Isadora, who won a Caldecott Honor for Ben's Trumpet, about a boy who dreams of becoming a jazz musician, rescues the text with bright, crisp collages reminiscent of Eric Carle's work. Like Paschkis, Isadora uses ornate textiles as cultural symbols. Some dancers wear detailed, realistic renderings of African fabrics in a range of styles: yellow, blue and brown zigzags; delicate, interlocking purple diamonds; thin stripes in brown and black. Others wear bold gowns painted with thick, textured brushstrokes. Their radiant faces, often shown in perfect profile, have dramatic skin tones, complicated striations of brown, yellow, orange or black. Isadora's dynamic, crowded scenes, often mounted on simple white backgrounds, spill over the edges of each two-page spread. Even a quiet illustration of the soldier resting alone in his room seems larger than life, as if we are lying right next to him. Though the story will not inspire, children will delight in Isadora's lively illustrations.
—The New York Times

Rebecca Zerkin

Using a light touch and a fanciful, indeterminate setting (is it medieval? is it Edwardian? is it Venetian?), Duntze freshens up an old favorite, the tale of a crafty soldier who outwits a dozen princesses determined to dance the night away. Her sherbet-hued palette, her elegantly precise lines and her evident pleasure in details add up to luscious fantasy, easily incorporating the magical elements of the story (a cloak that renders the wearer invisible, trees of silver, leaves of diamonds). Even the endpapers, scattered with a dozen pairs of tiny stylish shoes, hint of wonder. From start to finish, a pure delight. Ages 5-8. (Nov.)

Publishers Weekly - Publisher's Weekly

Gr 2-4-- Carter has chosen the elaborate French version of the Grimms' simple tale as the basis of her retelling. A handsome young cowherd named Michael, with the aid of a mysterious lady and two enchanted laurel trees, discovers how the king's 12 bewitched daughters dance their slippers full of holes each night and marries the youngest princess. Carter's text is much more smoothly written than Mayer's (Morrow, 1989), with an easy flow and a slight formality that suits the mannered tale well. Subtle touches of humor and hints that there may be more to the story than readers are being told add depth and help to maintain readers' interest. Unfortunately, Dalton's illustrations undermine that interest. Her faces are particularly distracting--flat and insipid and unbelievable. The beautiful and haughty princesses only look vapid, with the same expression (or lack thereof) repeated over and over. In an elaborate double-page spread, when Princess Lina declares her love for Michael, both central figures look like dolts. Their round, open mouths and awkward postures detract from the drama of the scene and make it hard to take the story seriously. Faces aside, Dalton does an effective job with the settings. The silver forest is glitters, the costumes have an appropriate confectionery richness, and the small drawings that appear on several pages add a nice decorative note. Overall, this is a serviceable addition to collections in which illustrated folk and fairy tales are in demand, and should find further use as a read-aloud. --Linda Boyles, Alachua County Library District, Gainesville, FL

School Library Journal

The familiar tale from the Brothers Grimm receives a bright treatment in an unspecified African setting. As she did with Yo, Jo! (April 2007) and The Princess and the Pea (June 2007), Isadora uses her new collage technique which combines Eric Carle-like painted paper and bright prints against clean white space, to tell her story. The text hews to the original, simplifying it somewhat but leaving the essential plot and structure intact, allowing the images to take center stage. The princesses are a rainbow, dark-, light- and medium-brown skins on bodies of varying shapes and heights, their dresses a riot of color. Visually gorgeous though it is, however, there is reason to be concerned with the arbitrary relocation of a German tale to Africa-an Africa, moreover, that owes more to an idealized conglomeration of vague sub-Saharan images than to any real evocation of a specific time or place. While this fairy-tale retelling avoids the grievous cultural misstep of the earlier Princess and the Pea, it still feels more self-indulgent than anything else, less a startling new interpretation than an opportunity to explore color, design and technique. (Picture book. 4-8)

Kirkus Reviews