The World's Best Fairy Tales, Volume 1

The World's Best Fairy Tales #1

by Belle Becker Sideman (Editor)

Volume 1 of a 2 volume set fairy tale anthology. All the best loved and remembered tales.

Featuring the stories: The Pied Piper of Hamelin, Snow White and Rose Red, It's Perfectly True!, Tom Thumb, The Nightingale, Chicken Little, The Frog Prince, Cinderella, The Princess and the Pea, Ali Baba and the Forty Thieves, The Golden Goose, Why the Sea is Salt, The Ugly Duckling, Jack and the Beanstalk, Two Frogs, The Snow Queen, Six Sillies, The Hedgehog and the Rabbit, Thumbelina, The Sorcerer's Apprentice, Red Riding Hood, The Little Mermaid, Five Wise Words, The Goose-Girl, Beauty and the Beast, The Town Mouse and the Country Mouse, Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, The Tinderbox, Little Fir Tree, The Bronze Ring, Three Billy Goats Gruff, The Boy Who Kept a Secret, The Magic Kettle.

Genres: Fiction, Fantasy, Classics, Fairy Tales, Childrens, Collections, Folklore

381 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 1970

Reviews

[Bridget · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is simply a cheerful and enjoyable read. It is easy to get through, and is perfect to chunk out throughout the day (I try to just read one fairytale each sitting to keep myself on task). This was an in-between read for me, and it didn’t constantly absorb my life (as some books tend to do). I would suggest this collection to classic-lovers, the fantasy-obsessed, and Disney aficionados alike. It isn’t life changing, but it will brighten up your day.

[Taylor Carson · Rating 4 out of 5]

Another fantastic volume of classic fairytales. I’m so glad I own this set. I read them aloud to Ammon on road trips.

[Sarah · Rating 4 out of 5]

I've had this book since I was a child, the two volumes I got at a young age. Despite the tile the fairy tales are primarily European (many from Hans Christian Andersen, Brothers Grimm or Andrew Lang), some better known than others and many of which have alternate versions. There's also a variety of length of the different stories. Each of the stories comes with one illustration as well. My favorite fairy tale growing up was The Snow Queen, which is in this volume so that was the one I read the most.

A large portion of the stories involve princes, princesses, and marriages to them. A few of them have animal protagonists though. There also seems to be a theme of giving what little you have to help strangers and being rewarded for it.

I think my rating reflects the fact that I've probably had this book for 30 years and grew up with it and like fairy tales, some stories I'd rate higher than others though but overall I think it's a great book that children can also enjoy.

The Pied Piper of Hamelin, which is a story dating back to the Middle Ages. Snow White and Rose Red which is not related at all to the more well known Snow White story and has kind of a rushed ending with them being married off to the prince & his brother in basically two sentences at the end. It's Perfectly True! doesn't really seem to have any moral to the story, it's kind of an odd one. Tom Thumb ties in with Merlin and King Arthur's court, it's a good adventure story and then he just up and gets killed by a spider. The Nightingale is actually a Danish story, despite being set in China.

Chicken Little is pretty well known, it's short and has lots of animals with rhyming names who get eaten by a fox. The Frog Prince like many of the stories has an abrupt ending. Cinderella in this book is a less dark version and there seems be a lot of alternate versions of it as it's a well known story. The Princess and the Pea is pretty short so this one I think has less variety of retellings. Ali Baba and the Forty Thieves is probably one of the best known Arabic stories. The Golden Goose is one of the stories where the protagonist has to share his food and wine and gets rewarded unlike his brothers who didn't. Why the Sea is Salt is another Scandinavian story recounting how a mill that makes salt wound up at the bottom of the ocean and how that causes the salt water.

The Ugly Duckling is also a pretty basic, well known story. Jack and the Beanstalk is a slightly different take. In this version of the story Jack's father was killed by the Giant and his mother fled with baby Jack so Jack is retaking his family home that the Giant stole from them in the end (along with taking the hen, harp & gold) and a fairy explains this to him when he first climbs the beanstalk. Two Frogs is one of the few Japanese stories. The frogs from Osaka and Kyoto stand up and think they see the other city but actually see their own, they decide the cities are the same and go home.

The Snow Queen is one of Andersen's longer stories. I think I just loved the adventure that Gerda goes on and how determined she is to find her friend Kay. Six Sillies is very short and I just wanted to know at the end what the children were named. The Hedgehog and the Rabbit has a rabbit who can't tell the difference between the hedgehog and his wife so he races back and forth while both hedgehogs remain in the same place. Thumbelina is also one of the better known ones. The Sorcerer's Apprentice is probably not as well known.

Red Riding Hood is one of the better known stories. The Little Mermaid in his version the characters don't have names. The mermaid does have a grandmother and five sisters. Five Wise Words is the only Indian (Punjabi) story in the book. The Goose-Girl does end with the imposter being tricked into choosing her own punishment, which will end in death. Beauty and the Beast is one of the longer stories and like most of the other stories that Disney adapted they made some kind of significant changes, but this is more of the original story.

The Town Mouse and the Country Mouseis one the shorter side. Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs is a pretty well known one and sticks to the original story. The Tinderbox is one I don't think I've ever read or seen elsewhere. Little Fir Tree is from the POV of a Christmas tree as it grows, then is decorated for Christmas and then turned into firewood but I kind of liked it. The Bronze Ring comes from either the Middle East or Central Asia. Three Billy Goats Gruff has the well known troll under the bridge.The Boy Who Kept a Secret tells about how fulfills a prophecy of keeping a secret and becomes Kings of Hungary. The Magic Kettle is a Japanese tale.

[Irena · Rating 4 out of 5]

Jako fina kolekcija bajki. Sadrži popularne, ali i neke manje poznate priče. Pojedine su prilično morbidne, ima onih sa poukom, sa srećnim ili tužnim krajem, neke su čak potpuno besmislene i nemoralne. Sve u svemu, prijatno iznenađenje.

[April Mc Vey · Rating 3 out of 5]

Really enjoyed these older version of fairy tales!

[Mariah · Rating 5 out of 5]

Highly recommend if you like fairy tales.

[Haley Bulfer · Rating 4 out of 5]

Kinda fun getting to read a bunch of stories you grew up hearing but with more of the original rendition.

[BRNTerri · Rating 5 out of 5]

View all images from inside the book here.

This is a small hardcover without a dust jacket, measuring 8 1/4" x 5 1/2" x 1 1/8" and weighing 1lb. 8 oz. The top of the pages are gold. This was originally published by Random House in 1967 as one huge 800+ page volume with the same illustrations on the dust jacket as this one from 1983 but a different color. The pages of my 1983 edition are thick and of good quality. Each story has one full-page, full color illustration. All illustrations were done by Fritz Kredel and can be seen here. There's information in the back of the book about where each story chosen for this anthology came from, which book it was previously published in, and what year. As far as translations go I couldn't tell you if these stories were translated good or not.

The stories are hit or miss as all fairy tales are. I like the darker ones, so I like the well-known ones in here best, like The Pied Piper of Hamelin, Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, Red Riding Hood and Chicken Little. This has the original Charles Perrault version of Cinderella, not the darker Grimm's version. Most of these stories are very violent and gruesome. very, especially Ali Baba and the Forty Thieves, which makes me think of a Beastie Boys song. My least favorite is The Boy Who Kept a Secret because he beats a woman and smacks another one and still wins in the end. Perhaps the saddest one, to me, is The Little Mermaid. It actually made me sad. The cutest one was Two Frogs and made me giggle. I didn't grow up reading fairy tales so as an adult I'm getting into them, so I enjoyed this book, and the illustrations. Illustrations always make stories better, preferably ones in color.

[Salt · Rating 5 out of 5]

my favorite book when i was a wee little kid

[Elizabeth · Rating 4 out of 5]

I loved reading these - some I had never heard of before.

[Krissy]

another did not finish. EOIT just wasn't into it.

[J · Rating 3 out of 5]

The format of this book makes reading the fairy tales fun again. A good collection to own.

[Sara · Rating 4 out of 5]

A lovely read. I was unfamiliar with many of the Asian fairy tales, and was also unfamiliar with the original tales which became Disney movies. Great book for young or old.

[Teddybeary · Rating 5 out of 5]

My childhood would be incomplete without it