num_pages: 286
description: Roger Sale invites us to discover anew some of the great works of children's literature, works that have been read and loved but seldom given the benefit of serious literary assessment. It takes a critic of special gifts―receptiveness, discrimination, clarity of perception, independence of judgment―to discuss these books as illuminatingly as Sale does.This is not a survey but a very personal Sale writes about stories and books with which he feels an imaginative sympathy. As it happens, they include a great many of the classic children's texts, works as disparate as “Beauty and the Beast” and Alice , The Wind in the Willows and Babar , “The Snow Queen” and Peter Rabbit , the Jungle Book and the Oz books. He conveys a fresh sense of what is special and memorable about each of them.While avoiding conventional literary history, he sketches the circumstances of the author's life when they provide insight into the works. Unlike Bettelheim and others, Sale is not concerned with the “uses” of children's literature. He writes for adults, with the conviction that adults can find delight in these books. Many already do, and perhaps with his stimulus, many more will.
language: English
title: Fairy Tales and After: From Snow White to E. B. White
titlecomplete: Fairy Tales and After: From Snow White to E. B. White (Harvard Paperbacks)
genres: Fairy Tales, Nonfiction
ratings_count: 13
awards: awardedAt: 284025600000
name: Washington State Book Award
publisher: Harvard University Press