Our daughter Lily loves fairy tales. Shiny new Disney ones or grizzly Grimm Brother originals, she loves them all. When she was three, she would laugh and laugh at the fox gobbling up the gingerbread boy or the largest Billy Goat Gruff ramming the troll into the water. This was in sharp contrast to our older son, Jackson, who at that age begged me to stop reading “The Wolf and the Seven Little Kids” in Bernadette Watts Collection because it was too scary.
So for Jackson, the collection of fairytales he enjoyed most for a long time was Marc Brown’s Arthur’s Really Helpful Bedtime Stories which retells the stories with a touch of humor (and a lack of death or peril) using the characters from the Arthur books (for example, DW is Red Riding Hood, and asks the wolf to stop drooling on her cape).
But a few years later, we were able to branch out beyond just Arthur and Francine starring in the “Princess and the Pea.”
By age 3, Lily enjoyed all the Paul Galdone versions of the classic fairy tales:
- The Three Billy Goats Gruff,
- The Three Little Pigs,
- The Gingerbread Boy,
- Little Red Riding Hood,
- Jack and the Beanstalk,
- The Little Red Hen,
- Henny Penny,
- The Three Bears
At age 4, she really enjoyed funnier versions by James Marshall
- James’ Marshall’s Cinderella,
- Goldilocks,
- Hansel and Gretel,
- The Three Little Pigs,
- Little Red Riding Hood.
By age five, she could sit through much longer versions, even with very few pictures, including some of the gorgeous versions by Paul O. Zelinsky and KY Craft that every few months I had tried unsuccessfully to get her to sit through before.
In reading stories at the kids’ school’s library time, I think that Lily might have a slightly longer attention span for these than the average five-year-old, but all the kindergarteners really enjoyed the short Galdone classic versions of fairy tales, even the ones in which a character meets a dark end. (When I polled the kindergarten class on whether they wanted me to read the 3 Little Pigs where the wolf runs away or the wolf dies, they all said “Dies!” very enthusiastically.)
Jerry Pinkney also has some beautifully illustrated, longer, traditional folk and fairytales that I’ve read aloud to whole early elementary classes as well: The Ugly Duckling, Puss in Boots, The Little Red Hen, The Three Billy Goats Gruff, Little Red Riding Hood, and The Little Mermaid.
When Lily was five, she loved so many princess fairytales that when I went to make her list of her favorite picture books at age 5, I decided we needed a separate list just for her beloved fairytales. So below are the fairytales we loved reading, starting during her kindergarten year, many, if not all of which, our whole family enjoyed. Now that Lily is 7, she can read many of these to herself! She especially loves to read Ladybird Classic Stories to Share and Bedtime Stories for Girls.
Individual Fairytale Picture Books
Snow White and Rose Red retold by Kallie George and illustrated by Kelly Vivanco. I grew up reading and loving the Ladybird Snow White and Rose Red so it was fun to find this beautifully illustrated version of the two sisters who befriend a bear (a prince in disguise) and keep trying to help the evil, ill-tempered dwarf who stole the prince-bear’s treasure. This is possibly still my favorite fairytale.
Sleeping Beauty by The Brothers Grimm and illustrated by Maja Dusikova ( Also K.Y. Craft’s version). The illustrations in both Dusikova’s and Craft’s versions of these stories are so beautiful. Sleeping Beauty so far has been the one Disney movie that has given Lily pause (Maleficent is pretty scary at the end), but Lily loves to look at these books.
Beauty and the Beast by Ursula Jones and illustrated by Sarah Gibb (Also KY Craft’s). These illustrations are very fun, not as intricate KY Craft’s, but very engaging.
Lon Po Po: A Red-Riding Hood Story from China by Ed Young. I probably enjoyed the setting of this more than the kids, but it kept their attention, and they liked talking about how it was similar and different from a traditional Red Ridinghood. We also enjoy the Algonquin Cinderella The Rough-Face Girl by Rafe Martin and David Shannon and Mufaro’s Beautiful Daughters: An African Tale by John Steptoe. 
Rapunzel retold and illustrated by Paul O. Zelinsky (Also Sarah Gibb‘s and Trina Scart Hyman’s). Lily also likes Paul O. Zelinsky’s Rumpelstiltskin. These are some of my all-time favorite illustrations. They are in a Renaissance style, intricate and beautiful.
Cinderella by Marcia Brown / K. Y. Craft / Ruth Sanderson. This is a classic version, with several visits in several different dresses to several balls. (For a very different version, I adored reading Walt Disney’s Cinderella retold by Cynthia Rylant and illustrated by Mary Blair, which is a poetic reflection on the movie and all the longings to love and be loved in it.)
Twelve Dancing Princesses retold and illustrated by Brigette Barrager (Also K. Y. Craft’s). I like Barrager’s retelling of this story for younger kids because the original can get very long and complicated, and this one is short and fun. Marianna Mayer and K Y. Craft’s and Ruth Sanderson‘s is more elaborate. I personally love all Alison Jay books, and her version of 12 Dancing Princesses is no exception. If you can get a copy of Princess Tales edited by Nora Kramer and illustrated by Barbara Cooney Kramer it also has a lovely Twelve Dancing Princesses story in it, and many other less common princess fairytales.
The Princess and the White Bear King by Tanya Robyn Batt and illustrated by Nicoletta Ceccoli A sort of Scandinavian Cupid and Psyche with a Bear who is a disguised king and a long journey to the land east of the sun and west of the moon to save him. (We also enjoyed (How Robin Saved Spring How Robin Saved Spring by Debbie Ouellet and Nicoletta Ceccoli).
The Golden Mare, the Firebird, and the Magic Ring by Ruth Sanderson. This is an adaptation of several Russian fairytales. I love the ending with its baptismal imagery. It also has a very great horse, for those who love a good horse story. We also read a recent retelling of Nine Russian fairytales called In a Certain Kingdom: Fairy Tales of Old Russia by Nicholas Kotar, and you can see where much of the inspiration of Ruth Sanderson’s story came from. 
Francesca Rossi’s Fairy Tale Adventures (Cinderella, The Little Mermaid, Little Red Riding Hood, Snow White, Rapunzel, Beauty and the Beast, and Sleeping Beauty). These are longer stories, with more fleshed-out characters and rich descriptions. These (around 60 pages with some pages all text) are somewhere in between a classic version (32 pages, all pages illustrated) and a fully novelized version like the wonderful Ella Enchanted by Gail Carson Levine (240 pages, no illustrations).
Collections of Fairy Tales
Tomie dePaola’s Favorite Nursery Tales by Tomie dePaola. Of course, Tomie dePaola’s illustrations are wonderful in this collection! It has classic poems (from Robert Louis Stevenson’s A Child’s Garden of Verses), folk tales (Little Red Hen, Three Little Pigs, Three Billy-Goat Gruff), as well as princess tales (The Frog Prince, The Princess and the Pea, Rumpelstiltskin) as well as fables. About half of the stories or poems were very familiar to me, and the other half were new but accessible and quickly new favorites. 
The Golden Book of Fairy Tales translated by Marie Ponsot and illustrated by Adrienne Segur. The illustrations are trippy, and there is only one per story, but this is a large collection of over 28 stories from The Brothers Grimm, Hans Christian Anderson, Charles Perrault, The Russian, Madame d’Aulnoy, and others. Most of the stories were unfamiliar to me, and even the classic ones were not the Disney versions! This collection captures the strange and wild world of traditional fairytales.
Eric Carle’s Treasury of Classic Stories for Children by Eric Carle. This treasury has a similar feel to the Golden Book has more (and in my opinion, better) illustrations with Eric Carle’s distinctive collages. It is a bit shorter and has over 20 stories from The Brothers Grimm, Hans Christian Anderson, and Aesop. My favorite stories were the Hans Christian Anderson stories from this collection: “The Magic Boots,” “The Wild Swans,” “The Winners,” “Big Klaus, Little Klaus,” ‘The Marsh King’s Daughter,” “The Traveling Companion,” and “The Evil King.” A similar collection of stories in a very different (but still lovely) style are the ones in The Random House Book of Fairy Tales adapted by Emy Ehrlick and illustrated by Diane Goode. 
The Bernadette Watts Collection: Stories and Fairy Tales by Bernadette Watts. This is one of my favorite sets of illustrations for a fairy tale collection. I wish I could have framed prints of many of the pages. The stories are varied, but the writing style is a little clunky (and my husband Evan found a lot of typos that I missed. One of the “gifts” of dyslexia is that I often autocorrect most of other people’s typos, so I did not notice them.) If you have a child who loves to just page through fairytales, this so beautiful. 
The Lion Storyteller Awesome Book of Stories by Bob Hartman and illustrated by Krisztina Kallai Nagy. This collection is probably strictly more fables and folktales from around the world, and does not have a great deal of princess fairytales. Still, it is very fun, a joy to read aloud, and very engaging. I think if you had a child who did not appreciate the formal language and long-winding traditional princess fairytales, this would be a great collection to start with. 
The Provensen Book of Fairy Tales by Alice and Martin Provensen. We loved the Provensen’s Maple Hill Farm books (The Year At Maple Hill Farm and Our Animal Friends at Maple Hill Farm) and found their quirky, fun illustrations very charming in their fairytale collection. There are a dozen stories in this collection, most of them unfamiliar, many of them quite long without illustrations on every page (more in the style of The Golden Book), but they are from a wide variety of authors (including Oscar Wilde, Arthur Rackham, Howard Pyle, and others).
Ladybird Tales Well Loved Tales. This is the collection of books that I grew up with. They are physically small (6.5 x 8.5 inches) and feel perfect for encouraging kids to read them for themselves. (I’d guess the text averages about a 3rd-grade level for reading.) I’m partial to the 1980s illustrations, but that may be more for nostalgia than merit. We have a few left from when I was little, but I do wish that we could get a big collection for our fairy-tale-loving girl as she grows into a stronger reader.
Scott Gustafson’s Classic Fairy Tales vol 1 and vol 2, Classic Bedtime Stories and Classic Storybook Fables. There are fewer stories in each of these, but the illustrations are the star of the show! These illustrations are so intricate and amazing; each one is a complete painting in and of itself. (Scott Gustafson spent over four years creating the seventy-five oil paintings for each book!) You can spend a lot of time just looking at each picture.
The Barefoot Book of Faeries by Tanya Robyn Batt and illustrated by Gail Newey and The Barefoot Book of Princesses adapted by Caitlin Matthews and illustrated by Olwyn Whelan The Barefoot Book of Dance Stories by Jane Yolen, Heidi E. Y. Stemple and Helen Cann. These Barefoot Books collections have less common stories from around the world, for when your child has heard the main dozen over and over again.
An Illustrated Treasury of Swedish Folk and Fairy Tales illustrated by John Bauer. This was a recent discovery for us! John Bauer’s turn of the century illustrations are gorgeous, weird and charming, but it’s the quality of the writing that was the best surprise of this collection. From a collection of authors including Elsa Beskow (whose books including Princess Sylvie we love around here), each one has been a hit. This one is a family favorite.
Our shelves are full of other collections for slightly older children that we have yet to read. There are so many fairytales! (If you kept a careful count, this post has more than 70 individual titles!) If you need more suggestions, check out these lists of fairytales from ReadAloudRevival.com WhatDoWeDoAllDay.com, WellReadKid.com, ImaginationSoup.net, Teaandinksociety.com, BooksForKeeps.co, TheWellTrainedMind.com and BookRiot.com.
What are your favorite fairytale books or collections?