Rumpelstiltskin Retold and Illustrated by Paul O. Zelinsky

Rumpelstiltskin is quite possibly my favorite classic tale. I was pleased to see that Mr. Zelinsky did his research before retelling this tale. He actually found that the Grimm Brothers had published about five different versions of this tale, and all were based from a story called "Rumpenstunzchen," where there is nothing about a king forcing a miller's daughter to spin gold, rather a young girl is given flax to spin into linen, but only gold thread comes from her spinning wheel. A little man tells her that he can make the prince marry her if she promises her first born child. From this point on the story is pretty much the same. Zelinsky pulled the best parts from each story to make a fantastic tale. The oil paintings were amazingly detailed, and Zelinsky portrayal of Rumpelstiltskin was almost chilling. Think that this is probably the best version of the classic tale that I have ever had the pleasure of reading, and that's saying something because when I was younger I recieved a video of the Muppet version of many Grimm fairy tales, and I cherished that VHS tape. Anyway, I think that this would be a good read for anyone over the age of six or seven.