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La bella y la Bestia
Un racconto di Jeanne-Marie Leprince de Beaumont illustrato da Walter Crane.
64 pages, Hardcover
First published February 3, 2015
49 people want to read
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Displaying 1 - 9 of 9 reviews
August 18, 2023
Cute illustrations with some two page spreads. This gives some more descriptions and dialogue than a lot of fairy tales do, but it's still very true to the original.
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July 20, 2015
4. Un libro publicado este año.
November 5, 2023
The next version of the Beauty and the Beast story I read was Beauty and the Beast: A Fairytale Adventure adapted by Giada Francia and illustrated by Francesca Rossi. This book was published in 2015. When I decided on the fairytale of Beauty and the Beast I went to the traditional literature section of my library and they had fairytales separated out by subject. I was intrigued to read this book as it had a lot more text than the other versions I saw. I was hoping for new details about this classic story. I read this book in hardcover and checked it out from my local library.
Beauty and the Beast: A Fairytale Adventure is a picture book that contains an adapted version of Beauty and the Beast. In this story, there is a wealthy merchant with three daughters. Two of whom are very vain and one who is humble and kind and so beautiful everyone calls her “Belle”. The merchant’s ships get lost at sea losing all of the money the merchant had invested in goods to sell. Because of this misfortune, the merchant and his daughters have to move to a small farmhouse as they can no longer afford to live in the city. One day the merchant gets word that one of his ships has returned and he rushes to the city to meet it. On his way he gets lost and stumbles upon the Beast’s castle. The Beast wants to imprison the merchant for trespassing, but agrees to set him free in exchange for one of his daughters. Belle agrees to go in her father’s place and is surprised to find that the Beast wants her to be the queen of his castle. The adventure continues as the Beast tries to win Belle’s heart and show her who he really is on the inside.
Though this is a picture book, it is text heavy. There is a small drawing amidst the text on each page and some pages have a full page illustration. Though these watercolor paintings are realistic they do have a more “cartoon” feel to them. The lines used to express emotions are sometimes exaggerated making them even more appealing to children (Temple et al., 2019). The faces on Belle’s sisters when they find out they have to move to the country made me giggle. Color also plays a big role in setting the mood of this book. The illustrator used bright colors during happy events in the book and darker colors to show fear, sadness, and darkness. There is not much diversity in this book. All of the illustrations portray white characters and the text makes no mention of diverse cultures or heritages. It is really hard to tell even in which country this book is supposed to take place because there is no mention of certain cultural practices. Diversity is definitely an element that the book lacks.
One of the strongest literary elements that this book has is characterization. Most fairytales do not go too in depth in their characters and they remain flat throughout the story. However, because this book is longer than a typical picture book (64 pages) it dives into more details about the characters. Most authors show us who characters are by what they do, how they think, and their relationship with others (Temple et al., 2019). The book describes Belle, her sisters, her father, and the prince by showing the character’s actions, how they relate to others, and what’s inside their minds and to reveal their personality traits. After reading this book I felt like I really knew the characters and watched them develop throughout the story. For me, it made it more interesting to read. One weak literary element is the setting and lack of cultural influences. In the beginning of the book the setting is described as “in a faraway place there was a unique city,” but the book does not give much description of the city, country, or castle and what they look like. It would have been nice if the book were set in a country and cultural practices and traditions were shown throughout. I think further development of the setting would have really added to the well developed characters and plot.
This is a text heavy longer picture book so I think it would be best suited for ages 8-11 or about grades 3-5. Students could read this book over a series of days in book clubs and analyze the plot and its features. Since this book is longer it would be better to break it down over a few days and have students digest smaller parts of the plot. They could use the plot diagram to summarize important events in each part of the story. Students could also make a character traits chart for one of the characters. They could identify specific character traits and find evidence in the text that supports their thinking. Students could use this book and compare it with other versions of Beauty and the Beast.
Beauty and the Beast: A Fairytale Adventure is a picture book that contains an adapted version of Beauty and the Beast. In this story, there is a wealthy merchant with three daughters. Two of whom are very vain and one who is humble and kind and so beautiful everyone calls her “Belle”. The merchant’s ships get lost at sea losing all of the money the merchant had invested in goods to sell. Because of this misfortune, the merchant and his daughters have to move to a small farmhouse as they can no longer afford to live in the city. One day the merchant gets word that one of his ships has returned and he rushes to the city to meet it. On his way he gets lost and stumbles upon the Beast’s castle. The Beast wants to imprison the merchant for trespassing, but agrees to set him free in exchange for one of his daughters. Belle agrees to go in her father’s place and is surprised to find that the Beast wants her to be the queen of his castle. The adventure continues as the Beast tries to win Belle’s heart and show her who he really is on the inside.
Though this is a picture book, it is text heavy. There is a small drawing amidst the text on each page and some pages have a full page illustration. Though these watercolor paintings are realistic they do have a more “cartoon” feel to them. The lines used to express emotions are sometimes exaggerated making them even more appealing to children (Temple et al., 2019). The faces on Belle’s sisters when they find out they have to move to the country made me giggle. Color also plays a big role in setting the mood of this book. The illustrator used bright colors during happy events in the book and darker colors to show fear, sadness, and darkness. There is not much diversity in this book. All of the illustrations portray white characters and the text makes no mention of diverse cultures or heritages. It is really hard to tell even in which country this book is supposed to take place because there is no mention of certain cultural practices. Diversity is definitely an element that the book lacks.
One of the strongest literary elements that this book has is characterization. Most fairytales do not go too in depth in their characters and they remain flat throughout the story. However, because this book is longer than a typical picture book (64 pages) it dives into more details about the characters. Most authors show us who characters are by what they do, how they think, and their relationship with others (Temple et al., 2019). The book describes Belle, her sisters, her father, and the prince by showing the character’s actions, how they relate to others, and what’s inside their minds and to reveal their personality traits. After reading this book I felt like I really knew the characters and watched them develop throughout the story. For me, it made it more interesting to read. One weak literary element is the setting and lack of cultural influences. In the beginning of the book the setting is described as “in a faraway place there was a unique city,” but the book does not give much description of the city, country, or castle and what they look like. It would have been nice if the book were set in a country and cultural practices and traditions were shown throughout. I think further development of the setting would have really added to the well developed characters and plot.
This is a text heavy longer picture book so I think it would be best suited for ages 8-11 or about grades 3-5. Students could read this book over a series of days in book clubs and analyze the plot and its features. Since this book is longer it would be better to break it down over a few days and have students digest smaller parts of the plot. They could use the plot diagram to summarize important events in each part of the story. Students could also make a character traits chart for one of the characters. They could identify specific character traits and find evidence in the text that supports their thinking. Students could use this book and compare it with other versions of Beauty and the Beast.
September 3, 2018
We read this one to our kids. It was pretty good.
November 27, 2021
Yo vivo enamorada de este tipo de clásicos.
June 9, 2023
Basic and unnecessary. Adds nothing, not even charm, to the tale that has been told so many ways before.
November 14, 2015
Fairy Tales - I found came across this book in the Kindergarten classroom. This book follows the story line of all the Beauty and the Beast stories in which Beauty falls in love with the Beast. The illustrations are nice. They're definitely drawn for the younger readers and the beast is drawn "cute" like. Not as adorable and lovable as the Disney beast, but not as scary as the older version I read on e-book. I would use this for my students and read it aloud.
June 23, 2015
Great book for an elementary aged child with the classic plot points of Beauty by Robin McKinley.
August 19, 2015
Gorgeous retelling of this classic tale. Illustrations are captivating.
Displaying 1 - 9 of 9 reviews