Classic Bedtime Stories

By Reader's Digest Association

Lots of bedtime stories for kids This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0785347402
• ISBN13: 9780785347408
• Release Date: January 2000
• Publisher: Readers Digest Young Families
• Weight: 1.15 lbs.

Customer Reviews

Five classic fairy tales

This handsomely decorated, 72-page, hardbound, 8.5x11" children's book is a bargain at the price currently listed. The end-papers are ornamented in two shades of green designed to look like William Morris wallpaper. There are multiple full-color illustrations adorning each of the five stories. The front cover is illustrated by David Grasso and each of the stories has been illuminated by a different artist. A great deal of care seems to have gone into the production of this book. The five stories (each adapted by a different author) are "The Nightingale" (adapted from Hans Christian Andersen), "The Brave Little Tailor" (adapted from the Brothers Grimm), "Gulliver's Travels" (adapted from Jonathan Swift's book of the same title, and containing only "A Voyage to Lilliput"), "Ali Baba" (the tale of "Ali Baba and the Forty Thieves" from One Thousand and One Nights"), and "The Five Brothers" (adapted from "The Five Chinese Brothers," a folktale that was published in this country by Claire Huchet Bishop). I would still recommend an old set of fairy tale books over this simplified-language edition that was published by Reader's Digest Young Families, Inc. They are Andersen's Fairy Tales(1945), and Grimms' Fairy Tales(1945). The language and illustrations of the old books are far more complex and beautiful. Perhaps your choice should depend on the age of your child, as the older set of tales published by Grosset & Dunlap is more difficult to read and the stories do not always have happy endings. I grew up with them and they very much enriched my imagination (and in some cases, frightened the dickens out of me, especially Arthur Szyk's illustration accompanying Andersen's tale of "The Girl Who Trod on a Loaf.")