Grimm Tales by Philip Pullman

[King Bob]

Pullman selects 51 of his favorites from Grimm's fairy tales in his own retellings. He's not rewriting them, just putting them in his words. He says his guiding thought was "How would I tell this story?" He never says if he worked from the German stories or English translations, but the results are good. Initially I wasn't sure about it; when we were younger it seemed like fairy tales were all told in sort of a 19th century style, and these are in a more direct and simpler style. But once I got used to that I enjoyed them. Some of the stories are very strange. Pullman gives a short afterword after each tale and some of these are very entertaining and informative. Plus he gives references to similar tales in collections of Italian and Russian fairy tales. Two stories I recognized from being retold in Richard Chase's "The Jack Tales," a book of Appalachian stories about Jack (of beanstalk fame).

If you want to read some Grimm, I'd recommend this one.