The Rumpelstiltskin problem
By: Vivian Vande Velde.
Publisher: Houghton Mifflin; Scholastic Paperbacks
Published: 2002
Place of publication: Boston
Language: eng
Number of pages: 116
Subjects: Fairy tales; Children's stories, American
Other titles: Rumpelstiltskin (Folk tale). English.
Description: A collection of variations on the familiar story of a boastful miller and the daughter he claims can spin straw into gold. Have you ever wondered just what was going on when that odd little man with the long name stepped up and volunteered to spin straw into gold for the miller's daughter? If you stop and think about it, there are some very peculiar and rather hard-to-explain components to the story. Vivian Vande Velde has wondered too, and she's come up with these six alternative versions of the old legend. A bevy of miller's daughters confront their perilous situation in very different ways -- sometimes comic, sometimes scary. Most of the time, it's the daughter who gets off safely, but sometimes, amazingly, Rumpelstiltskin himself wins the day. And in one tale, it is the king who cleverly escapes a quite unexpected fate.
Table of contents: title: A fairy tale in bad taste; title: Straw into gold; title: The domovoi; title: Papa Rumpelstiltskin; title: Ms. Rumpelstiltskin; title: As good as gold.