Rereading this in bits and pieces to my son, I enjoyed revisiting these fairy tales, some of which I barely remembered. The familiar ones are all here, but it was the unfamiliar ones which stood out the most, especially the ones featuring animals, which were often quite funny. My favorites were "The Traveling Musicians" and "Old Sultan." ( )

A shorter collection of tales. This review refers to the Puffin Story Book edition.

If you have any interest in folklore, you really ought to look at the Grimms' stories. They've served as a jumping off point for many other authors, and have infiltrated the public subconscious in a pretty big way.

This collection includes many of their better-known stories, such as Cinderella, Tom Thumb and the Twelve Dancing Princesses. There are also some more obscure tales, and a few of the other stories aren't quite what we would expect. Hansel and Gretel, for example, is a completely different story here; the children are abandoned in the woods, but there are no witches, gingerbread houses or breadcrumbs.

The tales are lively and interesting, but it's important to remember that they run on fairy tale logic. They aren't cleverly plotted; in fact, many of them seem to be simply a collection of incidents with no attention whatsoever paid to plot. They're often strange and dreamlike. I found myself unable to read more than a few at a time. They're important in a cultural sense and can often give us a good idea of human psychology through the ages, but I'm not sure I really connected with them in any other way. As far as entertainment value goes, I prefer to take these in small doses. ( )