Fairy Tales, Myths, and More

For ages 9 and up

From Hans Christian Andersen to Hindu epics to Shakespeare, these four collections compile stories that generations have grown up on. Young readers will discover folktales, refashioned classics, and the joy of literature as both adventure and tradition. In The Provensen Book of Fairy Tales, old favorites and feminist revisions alike are tied together by Alice and Martin Provensen’s iconic illustrations. Featuring stories by children’s-lit masters such as A.A. Milne and beloved literary stylists such as Oscar Wilde, this collection begs to be read aloud.

Seasons of Splendour guides young readers through the Hindu calendar with a year’s worth of stories about Indian gods and goddesses, kings and queens, princes and demons. Madhur Jaffrey (you may remember her cooking series on the BBC) introduces each story with a scene from her childhood in Delhi, where storytelling was an integral part of life. Shakespeare Stories refashions twenty-one of the Bard’s stories for young audiences. Leon Garfield’s distillations are true to the wit, humor, sublime heights, terrifying depths, and above all the poetry of Shakespeare’s originals. In The Little Bookroom, Eleanor Farjeon aims to recreate her favorite place in her childhood home: a delightfully dusty, book-filled den. That room was Farjeon’s portal into fantastical worlds, and her own stories of monarchs and commoners, musicians and dancers, prove equally transporting.