One of NPR’s Best Books of the Year
Winner of the Anne Izard Storytellers’ Choice Award
“The tales are fascinating— . . . they have all their original, fiercely oddball appeal.” —NPR, “Best Books of the Year”
“Bawdier, racier and significantly more scatological than the collection the Grimms published.” —Laura Miller, Salon
“This stunning fairy-tale find is grimmer than Grimm. . . . Here is real treasure. Just watch out for the witch.” —The Washington Post
“Schönwerth’s tales have a compositional fierceness and energy rarely seen in stories gathered by the Brothers Grimm or Charles Perrault.” —The New Yorker
“In the hands of renowned folklorist and scholar Maria Tatar, these seventy-two stories come to life with a snappy matter-of-factness, racing with palpable energy through fantasy landscapes that always feel close to home.” —NPR.org
“Lively and lucid.” —Marina Warner, The New York Review of Books
“[A] parade of giants, gnomes, kings, and witches . . . Anyone familiar with Disney or the Grimms will be surprised by these brief, enigmatic tales. . . . They teach us to read for the simple thrill of the tales themselves, their humor and their zest. . . . In their simple charm and wild imagination they remind us of the foundation of literature itself: the impulse to entertain.” —Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
“[This] new collection of German folk stories . . . challenges preconceptions about many of the most commonly known fairytales. . . . Many of the stories centre around surprisingly emancipated female characters.” —The Guardian
“Schönwerth’s legacy counts as the most significant collection in the German-speaking world in the nineteenth century.” —Daniel Drascek, University of Regensburg
“These eminently enjoyable tales offer a rich new take on the material of the Grimms and Andersen. . . . The tales are vigorous, direct, and less artful then those of the Grimms, suggesting greater authenticity, closer to the source.” —Library Journal
