BEAUTY AND THE BEAST

For Philippa Pearce's graceful retelling of the romantic 18th-century fairy tale, theatrical designer Barrett provides an atmospheric ultra-romantic 18th-century setting that reverberates with mystery. The words appear on mottled, deeply shaded pages that match the elusive facing scene in which background prevails over action and everything — the elegant palace and enchanted garden, the impalpable but gruesome ranged beast — is seen through a mist, in shadow, or in distancing cameo frames. And if the aura is ethereal, the scholarship is solid; the author appends three pages of source notes we would like to see emulated in all adaptations of old tales. A beauty.