THE MCELDERRY BOOK OF GRIMMS’ FAIRY TALES

A British import offers ten mostly familiar tales from the Brothers Grimm, retold in clear if uninspired language. Sleeping Beauty, Snow White and Rose Red, Rapunzel and the Frog Prince share the stage with the Little Mouse and the Lazy Cat and the Six Swans. Pirotta softens some of the tales slightly: Rapunzel doesn’t give birth to twins she must raise alone, and the wicked step-queen in Snow White dies of anger rather than from dancing in red-hot iron shoes. Nice design features include large, attractive type and an open layout with full- and half-page images and flowers by the page numbers to track each story. Clark’s pictures are clean-lined and richly colored with slightly exaggerated figures who have sharp features and pointed chins. They are set in an almost contemporary world: Snow White wears a cardigan and a flowered skirt in the dwarves’ vaguely 19th-century front hall, and the 12 dancing princesses wear party dresses that could have been from the 1960s. A lovely new collection to add to the already stuffed shelves of fairy tales. (Fairy tales. 7-11)