The Usborne Book of Fairy Tales: "Cinderella", "The Story of Rumpelstiltskin", "Little Red Riding Hood", "Sleeping Beauty", "Goldilocks and the Three Bears", "Three Little Pigs"

The pictures are lovely, and are by the same illustrator as Farmyard Tales.

It's a real treat having a favourite book with so many great stories. All too often the children only like one or two of the stories in a collection.

Recommended for 2 year olds who will sit still, but better still for those closer to 4!


We love this book   November 20, 2006
C. Tyrell (Germany)
12 out of 12 found this review helpful

This book is great for 2-4 year olds

The stories are short, simple and beautifully illustrated. I've read this book thousands of times to my daughter who can recite many of them.

If anyone from Usbourne reads this then PLEASE do a sequel of more fairy stories....


Perfect to introduce pre-school children to classic fairy tales   November 9, 2007
Dr. H. Payne
9 out of 9 found this review helpful

I agree with the earlier reviewers that this book is great. The classic fairy tales (which I always remembered in Ladybird Book format) are too complex for toddlers and pre-school children. But the classic stories are so good you want to start sharing them with your little ones as soon as possible. This book makes it possible.

It contains the well known stories of Goldilocks and the Three Bears, Cinderella, Rumplestiltskin, Little Red Riding Hood and several others. The stories are heavily abridged to make them accessible to toddlers but are still there in essence.

The best feature of all the Usborne series of books is their staging of language. At the top of each page is the simplest possible text summarising what is happening. This is great for 2 year olds with basic language skills. At the bottom of each page, suitable for 3-4 year olds, is a small expansion of the story. In this way this book grows with your child, taking them up to the more grown up and fuller versions of the fairy tales.

Another aspect of the Usborne series that I and my children love is the "hunt the duck" game. Every page of every story incorporates a small yellow duck who your child can search for. This sometimes gets forgotten when my little ones are really engrosed in the story. At times like this we often have to go back through the pages just to look for the duck!

I can heartily recommend this book.


Absolute family favorite   July 9, 2008
A. Radeck (Germany)
3 out of 3 found this review helpful

I bought this book when my eldest was 2 to introduce him to fairy tales. I had tried reading him some of my old fairy tale books, but the language was simply too difficult, the stories too long and the pictures too complex (as was the style then, I suppose). So I ordered this book and it was a hit from day 1.

It contains the classic childhood fairy tales such as Little Red Riding Hood, Sleeping Beauty, Cinderella etc. and tells them in a very summarised form. The more touchy issues are left out or skimmed over (e.g. the wolf falls through the chimney into the 3 pigs' pot of boiling water, then the pigs are shown eating soup saying they will live together) and the sentences are kept simple and understandable. They are even printed big enough for early-readers and indeed it was the first book my eldest started reading.

Each page (i.e. each sentence or two) is accompanied by a lovely colourful and yet simple picture which the kids love to use to point out the things I am reading to them. About 5-6 pages make up a story, which is the perfect match to a 2-year-old's attention span, and as the children get older, you can even read the whole book without overdoing the bed-time reading time slot.

This book has accompanied us whereever we go for over 2 years now, and although it is often and ungently fought over by my boys, is still in good shape. 5 stars on all fronts for this one.


Great introduction to Fairy Stories   August 10, 2008
Anne and Dan (Colchester, UK)
2 out of 2 found this review helpful

I have twin girls. One adores this book for the beautiful stories and illustrations and the other who normally runs riot during story time cant get enough of duck spotting! Sounds strange but I take my hat off to the person who thought of hiding a little yellow duck on every page. AT last there is peace at story time and their ability to find socks, toys etc has improved too! I acquired this book second hand but would happily pay full price for another copy should our current one end in tatters.