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What is A Handful of Beans? Six classics in one book: "Rumpelstiltskin," "Beauty and the Beast," "Hansel and Gretel," "Little Red Riding Hood," "The Frog Prince," and "Jack and the Beanstalk." As retold by Jeanne Steig, however, these well-loved tales acquire a certain modern vim. For example, the greedy King in Rumpelstiltskin is "as happy as a hog with a herring" to see all his straw spu... More

What is A Handful of Beans? Six classics in one book: "Rumpelstiltskin," "Beauty and the Beast," "Hansel and Gretel," "Little Red Riding Hood," "The Frog Prince," and "Jack and the Beanstalk." As retold by Jeanne Steig, however, these well-loved tales acquire a certain modern vim. For example, the greedy King in Rumpelstiltskin is "as happy as a hog with a herring" to see all his straw spun into gold. The mother of Beanstalk Jack has "a dab of a garden, and an old cow called Blizzard, because she was as white as the milk she gave, except for a few spots to make her more interesting." Although the vocabulary is generally simple, Steig doesn't shy away from words like "sauntered" and "rapacious." And the Frog-who-would-be-Prince, among other characters, regularly breaks into rhyming couplets. Combined with 34 colorful, cartoony illustrations by William Steig, this gently ironic smattering of folktales will delight the grumpiest of readers. (Ages 3 to 6) --Richard Farr

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