Leaping Beauty

From Booklist
The author of numerous books for children as well as Mirror, Mirror (2003) and other adult fairy-tale adaptations tries his hand at parodying for kids in this collection of eight animal tales. In the title story a cursed tadpole becomes, successively, Weeping Beauty, Sleeping Beauty, and finally, Leaping Beauty. Most tales involve slightly skewed but satisfying endings: Goldifox, an unemployed carpenter, moves in with three chickens so that he can make them some comfortable furniture in "Goldifox and the Three Chickens." But a few include references that may be beyond the target audience: the miller's daughter, a blond sheep fond of tight sweaters, changes her name from Norma Jean to Beauty in anticipation of a movie career. Demarest's comical line drawings add humor to the droll text and highlight the tales' absurdities. More upbeat than Vivian Vande Velde's Tales from the Brothers Grimm and the Sisters Weird (1995) and more complex than Jon Scieszka's The Stinky Cheese Man (2002), this is a delightful collection, sure to be popular with sophisticated readers. Kay Weisman
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Genre: Children's Fiction