In this charming picture book, a mother prepares her child for bedtime with a kiss, a drink of water, and a story or two. Of course, children are rarely ready for bed, and she paves the way with pieces of six commonly read fairy tales. Each snippet has an unexpected twist; for instance, who would associate solar panels with the story of The Three Little Pigs--and yet, an eco-minded wolf might. Some of the possibilities are really, really strange, but young children familiar with the original versions would delight in pointing out the things that don't fit--and then seeing how they might fit, after all. The digitally prepared illustrations pulse with life, alternating a double page spread with four simple images with a double-page spread whose images fill the page. This one would be a wonderful read aloud but might not be the best choice when trying to lull someone to sleep. If you're looking for a quick, simple read that goes through a number of classic fairy tales without dragging them out to even remotely full-length, this is the book for you. Basically lacking any kind of feasible plot, the book dives right into the most basic spare details of each fairy tale with a simple, repetitive scaffold. It's not because the author doesn't know what she's doing though. In fact, the writer most assuredly knows exactly what she's doing. She's writing a simple, interactive fairy tale introduction that invites participation and response all without boring the audience to sleep. In my case, this is just what I was looking for and it was done very well.
What do You think about Fairly Fairy Tales (2011)?
I liked the pictures and thought it was cute, just silly enough and enjoyable for little kids.
—micky
Richly detailed illustrations of very different takes on fairy tales.
—saru
K-2 read aloud-elements of a fairy tale/predictions
—Jbvg
