Description: 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 "Schnwerth'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 "Schnwerth'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

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