Similar in format to this team’s The Lion and the Mouse and Other Aesop’s Fables, this handsomely designed collection of retellings of six Grimm stories is distinctive in voice and image. The tales are both familiar and lesser known: The Hare and the Hedgehog, King of the Birds, When the Birds and Beasts Went to War, The Wolf and the Seven Young Kids, The Fox and the Geese, and the title tale. Author and artist notes in the front cite each one’s approach to Aesop; Orgel worked directly from the German text and updated some language; Kitchen describes how the Grimm tales appeal to the child in all of us. His elegant, finely textured illustrations resonate, setting the boxed text against scenery backdrops. A one-page biography of the Grimm Brothers adds a finishing touch. The retellings flow nicely from one story to the next. A beautiful family gift book. (Folklore. 5-9)
