Fairy Tale Gifts 2012: Jenna

Our next entry in the Fairy Tale Gifts 2012 Giveaway is from Jenna:

1.) The Annotated Brothers Grimm (The Bicentennial Edition) edited & translated by Maria Tatar. Though I have the previous edition, I can't resist also wanting this new one for the expanded content.

2.) The Fairy Tales of Charles Perrault (Calla Editions) illustrated by Harry Clarke. These Calla Editions look gorgeous!

3.) Off with Their Heads! Fairy Tales and the Culture of Childhood by Maria Tatar. I think I side with Tatar over Bettelheim and have been wanting to read this one for a while.

4.) Italian Folktales by Italo Calvino. I am not familiar any Italian folktales and I must correct this. (From Heidi: I should do a series of posts on Italian folktales. This is a WONDERFUL book, but not necessarily the place to start with Italian folklore. And Calvino, like so many, rewrote tales, too. The tales in this collection are "hybrids" as discussed in the introduction. I'm not picky that way, it's all literary to me once it is written down. Then again, it could be a starting point if you want to start with well-written tales and then work backwards to Calvino's source materials. I'm going to stop now and avoid the temptation of deleting this gloss altogether. In the end, this book is highly recommended and sits on my shelf but I don't take it down nearly as often as others.)

5.) The Complete Fairy Tales (Penguin Classics) by George MacDonald. I had never heard of him until I stumbled upon his tale "The Light Princess," and now I must read the rest of his fairy tales!

(From Heidi: Two wishlists included George MacDonald collections. While all of his books are available for free reading online, I understand the desire for a paper copy. I'd like to recommend finding editions of MacDonald's most popular tales illustrated by Maurice Sendak, and others, such as The Golden Key (A Sunburst Book) and The Light Princess (Sunburst Book).