Publisher's Weekly Review
Of this stylish retelling, PW said, ``it's like hearing a brand-new story in Galdone's words and vivid scenes.'' Ages 3-6. (Apr.) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved
Horn Book Review
These four books appear in uniform paper-over-board editions. Galdone was a refreshingly modest illustrator: his retellings are straightforward and his unassumingly loose-lined, color-separated pictures provide just enough embellishment. Plenty of white space gives the stories all the room they need. [Review covers these Folk Tale Classic titles: Cinderella, Henny Penny, Jack and the Beanstalk, and Rumpelstiltskin.] (c) Copyright 2014. The Horn Book, Inc., a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
Kirkus Review
A Galdone-illustrated folktale can be counted on for visual thrust and expression, but in recent years those Galdone trademarks have become perfunctory. Here, slapdash diagonals of heaped straw do for dynamic vitality, and the miller's daughter with her oversized sad eyes is unattractively and one-dimensionally formless. Without seeming to try, Galdone can point up his story with a subtle detail (the ring of keys in the king's hand) or a sideways glance (a gloating one from the dandily dressed dwarf on the title page; a sinister one from the jewelery-laden king). But this is a garish, overbearing sort of expressiveness. Certainly these pictures will project to storyhour crowds, but they are all blare and no echo. Copyright ©Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
