I love the pictures in this---vivid, jewel-toned, with a retro style reminiscent of the Golden Books I read as a child---and the text is simple enough to be a great read aloud. But this is definitely not my favorite retelling.

From other versions of the tale, I remember a down-on-his-luck soldier, a kindly crone, an invisibility cloak, a sleeping draught, sinister princes...a world edgy with magic where wonders and horrors exist side-by-side. Brigette Barrager's reimagining may be gentler, but I rather doubt most children---closely attuned to the unknown, the fantastic, the wonder-full in this realm and that of their imagination---need their faery tales rendered entirely toothless.