Peter Stoyko Stoyko itibaren Singpur, Madhya Pradesh, Индија itibaren Singpur, Madhya Pradesh, Индија

Not having read any of Perrault's fairytales before, I didn't quite realise what I was in for... And people say that Grimm's fairytales are gruesome - huh, think again and read Perrault's! There's an ogre appearing in about almost every single one of the eight tales in this edition, and, of course, they love eating fresh flesh (i.e. little people) and do so without delay. Yet in a strange way, I found these tales delightful and just so different to the Grimm's; in fact, they made me laugh out loud a few times - perhaps mostly because things took me by surprise, like the ending for "The Fairies": Nowhere could the wretched girl find anyone who would take her in, and at last she lay down in the forest and died". End of story. Each tale has a moral at the end, some even have two. There are some real nice gems among them, like the "Another moral" at the end of Blue Beard: You can tell this tale is old By the very way it's told. Those were days of derring-do; Man was lord, and master too. Then the husband ruled as king. Now it's quite a different thing; Be his beard what hue it may - Madam has a word to say! And this being written in 1697!