A Collection of Fabulous Fascinating Fairy Tales Volume 7 : Fairy tales for children age 5-7: Bedtime stories for children age 5-7

by J.R. Gibson

How can a man build a ship that travels on sea and land?
Could you complete a seven year journey?
Would you prefer happiness in youth or happiness in old age?

The power of magic means that some people can achieve great things, while others can be humbled. In the world of Fabulous Fascinating Fairy Tales, just about anything is possible.

534 pages, Kindle Edition

Published March 11, 2024

Reviews

[Trish Butler · Rating 3 out of 5]

A collection of old-fashioned style tales

Reading these tales may take a parent back in time to those old-fashioned stories of men overcoming obstacles to save the woman or a moral tale of the person behaving ‘bad’ getting their comeuppance.

Given the abundance of children’s books with brightly coloured and well-drawn pictures and a more modern slant to the story, this volume is unlikely to make the cut if the child can choose. Also, as it is only available as an ebook, it is unlikely to be selected over anything from a well-stocked bookshelf.

For me, the old-fashioned elements of men wanting to marry a woman and her father giving her no choice in the matter, of queens needing magical help having babies and even stalking/pranking resulting in marriage, all of which often appear in this volume, is a style of story well past its time.

2.5 stars rounded up to 3

[pdmac pdmac · Rating 3 out of 5]

Though the stories unfold quickly, there are too many explanatory asides to assist the reader as to why something is happening. Further, the title states that it is for children ages 5-7, yet I occasionally found the language to be more appropriate for much older individuals – e.g., how many 5-year-olds know what an indentured servant is… or what the machinations to “gain political experience” mean?

There are far too many formatting problems, especially with dialogue. The work needs further proofing and editing.

The artwork is primitive at best. One assumes the author’s intent was to render the art as though done by a 5-year-old. Unfortunately, the artwork does nothing to help the stories. As visual art is a necessity/requirement in books for this age-group, I’m surprised the author chose these works. The same can be said for the cover. Other than the title, there is nothing eye-catching about the cover, which is essential for every author competing for visibility. It looks like the author created the cover.

Now, having said all that, there is great potential in these stories. The plots are clever and the tempo for each story is very good. With further editing and rewriting, the author would have a very viable collection of stories.

[Gene Kendall · Rating 3 out of 5]

Author JR Gibson returns with another hefty collection of fairy tales, ostensibly aimed at small children, but modern parents might take issue with the continuous death and deception. (Although that is traditionally what readers expected from fairy tales in the pre-Disney days.) These are stories about magic, tricksters, and noblemen desperate to marry fetching princesses. As in the previous volumes, the author includes childlike drawings that I'm going to guess were rendered in Microsoft Paint. I honestly don't understand the thinking behind their inclusion, and don't know how most readers will respond to them, especially in the days of easily available AI art (the talking bed bug did cause an unexpected laugh, though.) The language is so simplistic it's hard for an adult to find much to latch onto, and the author's use of punctuation relating to quotation marks is simply wrong. There are some decent ideas here, though, and someone curious about how an author crafts new fairy tales today might consider this worth a look.

[J.A. Freely · Rating 4 out of 5]

If you don't think the works of the Brothers Grimm, or Aesop's Fairy Tales, and the like are a sufficient body of work for your children, then here you go!

This gets four stars mainly because it delivers what it promises: bedtime stories for little kids. But it doesn't get five stars because the stories really don't add anything new to the existing body of work. There isn't anything modern, nor are there any easy to discern moral lessons, or really anything that makes these stories memorable or something that will stand the test of time. But I do believe they will help get your kid's eyes to close, and maybe elicit a dream of kings, princes, princesses, wizards, etc. So it feels like feeding a kid junk-food fairy tales.

But we all enjoy a little junk food from time to time,, right? The stories are a good length for a bedtime story, so if you just want a little bonding time with your kid, this should do the trick.

[Eileen · Rating 5 out of 5]

This collection of stories are humorous, fun, full of magic and intrigue with a welcome sense of familiarity as fairy tales but freshly baked.
I enjoyed every story in this collection but the last one called, 'Sweet Talk' made me laugh out loud as a young pair competed to play tricks on each other until they discovered they really did like each other.
The stories are quirky and wacky and people of all ages would enjoy them.

[Michael Ferguson · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a collection of children's bed time stories. They are magical and focus on kings and princesses, and wizards. There area nice variety of stories, although at times the reader level maybe a little high than 5-7 yrs of age. Overall, a nice addition that children will enjoy.