English Fairy Tales by Flora Annie Steel
My rating: 5/5 cats
when i was a little girl, and would stay over at my grandmother’s house, i would always need a stack of books to entertain me. i would bring my own, of course, and when i ran out of those, as i invariably would, she would take me to her local library, which was always a treat. a new library! different books! but i would of course run through those pretty quickly, damn you rental limits!!
so i would be forced to head to her bookshelves. and so i read a lot of v.c. andrews at an impressionable age. which is the best time to read v.c. andrews, frankly.
and there was this fairy tale book i loved. it was very unassuming: a plain blue clothbound book with no cover illustrations, and nothing that stuck out in my mind when i had to remember what it physically looked like. because somehow that book went missing. and no one in the family had any answers for me when i begged them to help me get my hands on it.
so i began my search. i knew it was not one of the lang collections, and i knew it was a collection of english tales. with pretty illustrations inside.
i learned it was not this one.
or this one.
but through the good works of my daddy, the day was finally saved. and here it is. and thanks to jerri, i now own a copy of my elusive childhood love!
and this edition is so much nicer than the one i read as a kid.the illustrations are rackham’s (i did not know who he was as a child) and they are just gorgeous.
and the stories! they are all here!
The Golden Ball, Nix Naught Nothing, Mr Fox, Caporushes (my favorite, favorite), The Two Sisters, The Three Feathers….all my friends!
and the ones i would always skip: The Babes in the Wood, Lawkamercyme (yuk! pomes!), and the ones i thought i already knew like jack and the beanstalk and the three little pigs.
and the ones i would giggle over: Tom-tit-tot and The Ass, the Table, and the Stick (what, i was ten—v.c. andrews didn’t desensitize me that much!)
but now that i am all grown, i think i shall read the poems and the more “expected” stories, just to relive my childhood and appreciate these stories as an adult. mostly. heh, tom-tit-tot…
thank you christmas miracle in may!
read my book reviews on goodreads
