Beautiful book.
There must be hundreds of versions of this classic, but this retelling by An Leysen is beautifully balanced and stunningly illustrated and is definitely a book I would love to have on my shelf to share with my grandchildren. Sadly, this was a NetGalley review copy so my grandchildren can only view it electronically.
I liked that the beast was not too scary and not going to give young children nightmares. This is a moral tale - don't judge people by their appearance - and given the success of recent books like Wonder by R.J. Palacio, it is a timely release.
Looking on Amazon, I see there are already three other fairy tales in this series, Baba Yaga, Pinochio's Dream and The Nutcracker, all with similar art work, beautifully created by the author. I would definitely consider buying these books; the illustrations make a big difference to my own pleasure when reading to children.
Age 5 years +.
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