I decided in 2015-2016 to take a break in the beginning of the year from the Flower Fairy Tale Books collected by Andrew Lang. I believe I started with the theme of "beautiful versions of fairy tales I happened to find at our library" and ended with a book on our shelf.For whatever reason, we struggled to read fairy tales every week during that school year; perhaps I just scheduled too many outside activities. Here are the few we did read.
In 2015-2016, First Son was in sixth grade, First Daughter was in third grade, Second Daughter was in first grade, and Second Son was still a preschooler.
Aladdin and the Enchanted Lamp retold by Philip Pullman with gorgeous illustrations by Sophy Williams - I selected this book from our library because I loved the illustrations so much. There are lots of versions of the tale of Aladdin, but I do think this is one of the better ones. We enjoyed it, reading it over a few weeks rather than all at once. It's longer than a standard picture book.
Merlin and the Making of the King by Margaret Hodges with illustrations by Trina Schart Hyman - This is another one where there are lots of versions, but I tend to love everything by Margaret Hodges and especially with illustrations by Trina Schart Hyman. The stories retold by Hodges tend to be ambiguous in the more mature scenes but without just glossing over immoral behavior, so you may want to pre-read anything from her books. I don't have this book on my shelves, either, so I can't quickly skim it to highlight anything particular in this one. I split this one into multiple readings as well. You would want to spend at least a week on each of the four stories.Melisande by E. Nesbit, illustrated by P. J. Lynch - This is a fun fairy tale with a twist from Nesbit, one of my favorite authors.
The Book of Saints and Heroes by Andrew and Lenora Lang
I have received nothing for this post. Other than the last book by Lang, these were all books I checked out from our library. Links to Amazon and Bookshop are affiliate links.
