Book Review: The story of Cinderella and other fairy tales

I have never responded to a meme before as I've never been tagged. So it was a pleasant surprise to see Sukumar tagging me to do a book review meme.

I have to confess that its been over 4 months since I started reading a book and went on to complete it. Many books lie in the to-be-completed part of the book shelf among them being, Michael Moore's Dude, where's my country, Humphrey Hawksleys' The third World War and Benjamin Graham's The Intelligent Investor.

I'm digressing now. Before I drift any further and lose your attention, the story I'm going to tell you all is that of Cinderella, not a best-selling fiction or Pulitzer winning book or something from the grapevine on the last Harry Potter book.

Baby Center's newsletter advised that kids enjoy listening to stories and develop an interest in books, when they are around 6 months old. So here, I was hunting online for a book of fairy tales and gave up because I did not find one with good illustrations, the thin big book of fairy tales with colorful pictures we are used to. So I went to my book shelf to pick up something for myself when my eyes fell on this teeny book titled, "The story of Cinderella and other fairy tales". My joy knew no bounds. A pencil note on the first page indicated I had gifted this to my husband on his birthday four years back. Who would have thought of it as a thoughtful gift then to a 26 year old?

This one, from a local publication is anything but fancy. Spanning 194 pages it has ll the fairy tales from Cinderella to Thumbelina to Goldilocks and the three bears and Snow-white and Rose-red. Neat sketches illustrate the event on every page that is complemented by text on the other page. One first look at the page and I was not too happy as it would have been too dry to get Lil General's attention minus the colors.
But this also provided me an opportunity to turn on my dramatics becoming the beautiful princess one minute and the wicked sibling the next to the charming prince the next.

What was amazing is these fairy tales have been told over and over again for ages and different reworkings have appeared since they were first told in the ninth century.But one never gets bored. It was almost like reliving childhood when I read it myself and then read it out to my brother and ow to my son. These fairy tales do take you in to the world of fantasy if only for a short while away from the drudgery of everyday life. Interestingly, these tales do have the ingredients of our everyday lives from sibling rivalry to wicked step mother to love at first sight. Yet all is well that ends well and fairy tales always end with a they lived happily ever after.

In all, I enjoyed doing the fairy tale bit. Reviews of books meant for grown ups will soon appear once I become an adult again - far away from the fantasy land.