Belgian picture-book author and artist An Leysen turns her hand to the classic French fairy-tale of Beauty and the Beast in this lovely picture-book. The story of a beautiful and kindhearted girl who takes her merchant father's place in the palace of a terrifying beast, learning in the process that looks can be deceiving, and that character is more important than appearance, it hardly needs any introduction, as it concerns the narrative. The text here is fairly traditional, and keeps for the most part to the structure of the classic Mme. le Prince de Beaumont version, which is arguably the best known today. The main variation here is that Beauty has only one other sister, rather than two (or five). The artwork is beautiful - colorful and quite expressive...

As someone who simply adores the fairy-tale of Beauty and the Beast, and who has over the years read many different variants and retellings of it, I was quite excited when I stumbled across An Leysen's telling at the public library, and I immediately snatched it up. I found the telling here quite engaging, and the artwork gorgeous. I appreciated the wordless two-page spreads from time to time, and thought they worked very well to emphasize particularly dramatic episodes of the story. The color scheme, the depiction of the characters, the little textured details - everything worked together to create a magical fairy-tale world. I had not been familiar with this artist before, but I will certainly seek out other books by her. Recommended to all fairy-tale lovers, and especially to fans of Beauty and the Beast! ( )

This is beautiful adaptation of the fairytale Beauty and the Beast. This is not the Disney version, but the original story about two sisters, one selfish and greedy and one kind, loving and helpful. It is also the story of The Beast, the prince who is turned into a beast by an enchantress who is upset with his selfishness. The illustrations are wonderful. They are a cross between anime and old style fairytale illustrations. I like that the beast is not really scary so you could read this with younger children. A good message of kindness, true love and generosity. A great version to read with children learning about fairytales or in a unit about positive values. The publisher generously provided me with a copy of this book via Netgalley. ( )

Beautiful book.
There must be hundreds of versions of this classic, but this retelling by An Leysen is beautifully balanced and stunningly illustrated and is definitely a book I would love to have on my shelf to share with my grandchildren. Sadly, this was a NetGalley review copy so my grandchildren can only view it electronically.

I liked that the beast was not too scary and not going to give young children nightmares.
This is a moral tale - don't judge people by their appearance - and given the success of recent books like Wonder by R.J. Palacio, it is a timely release.

Looking on Amazon, I see there are already three other fairy tales in this series, Baba Yaga, Pinochio's Dream and The Nutcracker, all with similar art work, beautifully created by the author. I would definitely consider buying these books; the illustrations also make a big difference to my own pleasure when reading to children.
Age 5 years +. ( )