Beauty and the Beast

by Della Rowland

Through her great capacity to love, a kind and beautiful maid releases a handsome prince from the spell which has made him an ugly beast

Genres: Picture Books, Fairy Tales

31 pages, Hardcover

Published January 1, 1990

Reviews

[Marquise]

Meh, just another mediocre adaptation with unnecessary changes, such as Beauty actually following Beast where he told her not to just to see him hunt prey and flee in fright (how can he do that if he doesn't have the body or hands of a beast, just the head and can eat normal food?). Also, the sisters don't make her stay even though they're as nasty as in the fairy tale, she overstays just because she's glad to be visiting. And in the ending, the curse is the same as in Disney's: the prince offended an ugly witch.

The art is rather unremarkable, too. Lanza's women are all so very alike. Snow White looks like Beauty here, too, and it gets boring and predictable. Beast has the head of a feline of some sort, a lynx or a lion, but has the slight frame of a man, and he doesn't look particularly impressive or frightening, which makes it weird why he is written to be a predator in the text. And finally, the rose the merchant plucks from the castle is said to be yellow, but in the illustration it's all red roses.

[Phair]

Illustrated by Barbara Lanza in a sort of Elizabethan, Romeo & Juliet style. I particularly liked one plate where the merchant is bringing Beauty to the Beast's castle and she is riding pillion behind his saddle as was appropriate for the era depicted. Beast is sort of lion or lynx looking with maybe a touch of wolf. The text is longer than many picture books with the story given much more embellishment- Beauty has 3 brothers as well as two sisters and there is information about the sisters' unsuccessful marriages that Beauty compares to her relationship with the Beast.

[Theresa]

beautiful pictures from a retelling