Fairy-Tale Picture Books to Delight the Eye

I t probably won’t shock any of my readers to know that I have a deep and abiding affinity for fairy-tale picture books, especially (but not limited to) the “princess” variety. I am, however, extremely choosy about which ones to stock on my shelves. As I’ve written before, the story and the artwork must come together to bring a tale to life, and it’s easy with fairy tales to allow our familiarity with the story to cover for poor images. This same familiarity may also encourage us to allow ugly, dumbed-down works into our children’s hands. With so many bad fairy-tale renditions to choose from, here instead are eight stellar ones, in no particular order. (Some of these illustrators and authors have other work that is equally excellent, and they are worth exploring further.)

Two on the list are Cinderella retellings. This rich fairy tale is both universal and ancient, and I spent a considerable amount of my lunch breaks while working my high-school library job reading every version I could find. Traditional retellings abound, but one that always charmed me was Ella’s Big Chance, by Shirley Hughes. Set in the 1920s, the images have a slight Norman Rockwell feel to them, and Hughes has a knack for catching amusing facial expressions. Even though the ending is slightly unconventional, it is sweet.

Cinderella-inspired fairy tales are also fascinating, and a particularly clever one is Princess Furball. This tale comes in a few different forms, but I prefer Charlotte Huck’s retelling with Anita Lobel’s pictures. Lobel’s drawings are dear to me, primarily because of her work on Adele Geras’s My Grandmother’s Stories, and she brings her lavish colors and unique sense of artistic movement to Princess Furball’s pages.

Rapunzel. This tale holds a certain fascination for me, and Disney’s Tangled is one of the best retellings yet. Book-wise, though, Paul O. Zelinsky’s Caldecott-winning adaptation is stunning. It also sticks with the more shocking (and, I think, more affecting) version of the tale, wherein Rapunzel and the prince are found out owing to her getting pregnant. Zelinsky’s medievalesque, highly detailed artwork for the book is striking, and he ably captures both intimate scenes and desolate landscapes that bring readers fully into the story.

Classifying it as a fairy tale might be cheating slightly, but the Greek myth Cupid and Psyche tops my list. It does involve a princess, which may absolve me, and it is the basis for the Norwegian fairy tale East O’ the Sun and West O’ the Moon. The Greek myth is told splendidly by M. Charlotte Craft and depicted in glowing detail by K. Y. Craft. Haunting used bookstores and thrift-store bookshelves is a hobby of mine, to the horror of my bank account, and I’m continually searching for other books authored and illustrated by this duo. I also search for anything illustrated by P. J. Lynch (whose artwork I’ve previously written about), and his version of East O’ the Sun and West O’ the Moon is worth the hunt.

Lynch also illustrated E. Nesbit’s Melisande, which is perhaps one of the most entertaining fairy tales written by that author. Fairy tales have rules, something Nesbit understood implicitly, and she follows some of those rules to their logical (and hilarious) endpoint in this amusing tale.

“Amusing,” not “fairy tale,” is the word that comes to mind when I think of Mercer Mayer. His Little Critter books are funny, his series of monster tales are clever, and his story Appelard and Liverwurst always makes me chuckle. But the best authors and illustrators are often the versatile ones, and seeing his artwork bring to life a classic tale is wonderful. Along with his first wife, Marianna, Mercer Mayer illustrated a version of Beauty and the Beast. The details spill off the pages in this retelling, and I especially appreciate the pen-and-ink symbols, which adorn the text areas of the book.

Mariana Mayer, who is herself a renowned children’s book author, also collaborated with K. Y. Craft (illustrator of the aforementioned Cupid and Psyche) to create a splendid edition of The Twelve Dancing Princesses. This story is actually rather long and involved (twelve dancing women is a lot to keep track of), but it follows the traditional fairy-tale tropes of handsome young gardeners, strange enchantments, and all major events happening in threes. The prose is clear and lovely, and the images are sumptuous — a true feast for the eyes.

There are numerous other authors and illustrators that could be listed here, not to mention the abundant number of fairy tales that exist and have been endlessly retold and redrawn. These are simply a handful of titles to engage your mind and please your eye, whisking you away into a world of brilliant colors, imposing castles, and yards and yards of marvelous golden hair.