Friday, February 15, 2008

Fairy Tale Feasts by Jane Yolen, recipes by Heidi E.Y. Stemple

I thought Fairy Tale Feasts would be a fun book to use with my four year old, but it seems to be more appropriate for older children; maybe around middle school ages. The idea is delightful: a book of fairy tales with recipes to go along with each. But these fairy tales are the real deal and many of the stories are quite dark; an abridged version of Hans Christian Anderson's The Little Mermaid, for example. There are notes in the margins about the origins of each story and about the various recipes, or elements thereof. There are a few tales that would be okay for young children, but on the whole I'd recommend this book for more mature readers. I'd love to see a preschool cookbook that incorporates stories! Does anyone know of one?

2 comments:

Queen of Carrots said...

I saw this book at the library and am also eagerly waiting for my kids to be a bit older so they will appreciate it. I actually spend a lot of time pondering which fairy/folk tales are at a level my 2 and 3 year old will "get." They seem to enjoy best ones with little or no obvious magic/mythical creatures (other than talking animals and foodstuffs!) and no particular romance plot: The Three Little Pigs, The Gingerbread Man, Goldilocks, Little Red Riding Hood, The Old Woman and the Pig, etc. Fairy godmothers and enchanted princes just seem over their head still.
It reminds me of something Chesterton said that 6-year-olds like fairy tales, but 3-year-olds like realistic tales because the whole world is still a fairy tale to them.
Anyway, even so there ought to be enough stuff there to make a good cookbook. One of these days we are definitely going to make a gingerbread man! I'm not so sure about wolf soup . . . ;-)

Carrie said...

I've never heard of this but I think it sounds really FUN. I shall officially start my journey to find it and will plan on using it when the tykes are older.

Thanks so much for the review!