I am always cautious of modern re-tellings of classic fairy tales. I greatly prefer fairy tales to remain largely the way I remember them from my childhood and I wholeheartedly believe children today should experience the same joy from these stories as generations before them. That said, I am happy to report Candlewick Press's Classic Fairy Tales written by Berlie Doherty passes my rigid authenticity test.

Doherty admits that she took the liberty to add small changes to each of the fai More...

Just a beautifully illustrated book! Admittedly, I bought it for the photographs, but I was hoping for a new spin on the familiar old stories, too. Unfortunately, the stories are just their standard versions. That makes this a great book to give kids, if they don't already have a anthology of fairy tales, but not much of a variation to a collection of fairy tale books already in place.