New Book: The Wild Swans by Hans Christian Andersen (Author), Gordon Laite (Illustrator)

The Wild Swans (Little Golden Books) by Hans Christian Andersen (Author), Gordon Laite (Illustrator) was released this month. Those of you of a certain age will look at this Golden Book and wonder if you owned this as a child and forgot it. And if you read the Amazon reviews, you will be even more confused. Because many of the effusively happy reviews are actually for other editions of the book--a common, frustrating problem with fairy tale publications on Amazon actually. But that's turning the focus away from this lovely.

Because when you read the book description:

From the Golden Book archives comes a Hans Christian Andersen fairy tale, gloriously illustrated by Gordon Laite in the late 1960s but never published until now!

Gordon Laite’s breathtaking artwork for a Little Golden Book edition of the Andersen fairy tale was found recently in the Golden Books archive. Planned for a 1970 release but never published, this Little Golden Book is finally making its debut for today’s fairy tale fans! And it couldn’t be a lovelier retelling of the story of a determined princess whose loyalty saves her brothers from being turned into swans by an evil queen.

You'll realize that this book has never been published before. So you didn't own it as a child. I didn't. I had my share of Little Golden Books and they still make my heart sing happily with memories. My ALL TIME FAVORITE: The Monster at the End of This Book can still make me want to happy dance. And reread for the gazillionth time.

But this one, no, I never knew. So I'll share some pictures from the book and rejoice that another version of this tale is available for readers of all ages. With deliciously retro illustrations. These actually scream 1950s to me, earlier than their originally intended publication date.