Little Jewel Box - Hardcover

Grade 1-3 This original fairy tale mixes folk tale elements in a new way, although not always keeping to traditional patterns. Isabel dreams of adventure and leaves home with a bad luck cake from her mother and a magic jewel box that can save her from death from her father. She arrives at a large house where she and the master's son, John, fall in love against the wishes of John's father, who assigns Isabel two (not three) impossible tasks to perform. Three little men from the jewel box perform these tasks, and the lovers are married. But a servant girl finds the box and whisks the castle the little men have created far away. Isabel, like countless folk tale heroines before her, must go in search of her husband. With the aid of a mouse, a frog and a hawk she retrieves her castle and John. The illustrations, done mostly in pastels, browns and grays, are well matched to the text. They show Isabel as a doughty heroine (more so than she seems in the story) in her lavender jacket, fawn trousers and boots; the sleepy little men from the box are delightfully funny. That the lovers are attired in 19th-Century dress, while John's father and others are wearing garb from other centuries, should cause no concern in a fairy tale. But the text suffers from stylistic flaws that detract from an otherwise commendable effort, and the ending seems abrupt and careless. Taken as a whole, an acceptable story, but hardly in a class with similar folk tales. Ronald A. Van de Voorde, Graduate Library School, Univ . of Arizona, Tucson
Copyright 1986 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Between "once upon a time" and "they lived happily ever after," an intrepid girl undergoes challenging adventures with the help of a treasured family jewel box and its unusual contents. Ages 4-8.
Copyright 1990 Reed Business Information, Inc.