This boxed set collects five classic fairy tales, creatively told and beautifully illustrated, for all ages. Former British Children's Laureate Michael Morpurgo lends wonderful detail and color to Hansel and Gretel and The Pied Piper of Hamelin, both illustrated in Emma Chichester Clark's expressive and detailed watercolor cartoons. Niamh Sharkey imagines Cinderella in caricatures of colored pencil and paint, while Max Eilenberg's winking text is full of sound effects and asides. For Beauty and the Beast, however, he gives the tale the gravity it requires, while Angela Barrett's haunting drawings depict a world made of magic. And Naomi Lewis's The Snow Queen is more a translation than a retelling, capturing the nuances of the original Hans Christian Andersen masterpiece, and is gorgeously illustrated with Christian Birmingham's lush and striking paintings.
