I've always loved fairy tales & everything about them. There's so much we can learn from them. Not only do they sometimes teach life lessons (such as "don't talk to strangers" in Red Riding Hood), but they also show us things about the culture that thought them up. For example, some of the stories passed around have hints of anti-semitism in them, while other stories are luridly written up to have wider appeal.

Like others have said, the tales that the Grimms collected were not originally meant for children- at least not entirely. While there are some that were undoubtedly told to frighten lessons into young minds, many of the tales were told by the fireside at pubs & gatherings to older audiences in order to entertain. (Remember- literacy wasn't a priority for the poorer & common people, so most of their entertainment came from stories & songs.)

With that in mind, parents should read through these stories first so they can pick the tales that are more appropriate to the ages of the children that want to hear them. The book makes for a great read & since there are multiple versions of some of the tales, it can make for interesting reading. For example, there's many different versions of "Beauty & the Beast", some of which have Beauty discovering that she is actually royalty.

This isn't the prettiest version of these stories, but this volume is one of the best I've found out there & the one I always refer people to whenever they ask for a good comprehensive book of the Grimm tales. There aren't many pictures in this book, so if you are looking for something more graphic intensive then I might suggest that you look for the tales in an individual format or maybe go for the comic version of some of the Grimm tales, The Big Book of Grimm.