The Sleeping Beauty

This book is a little gem! Like Shrek, you enter the wonderful dreamscape of fairy tales, and like Madeline, you have these delightful Bemelmans-esque illustrations and the tale of a very determined little girl. The story is a dream-within-a-dream type. Lena-Gabrielle dreams of going to the ballet alone (without parents) and fantastically the city of St. Petersburg becomes alive with talking gargoyles and things; then, she dreams of seeing the ballet of "The Sleeping Beauty" at the Mariinsky Theatre. This part of the story is based on the 1729 translation of the libretto of the actual ballet as performed in Russia. You feel so good about this book because it is such a great introduction to "the arts" --Fairy tales and literature, ballet, talk of great architecture, etc. It's a sure hit for almost any young girl and a pretty darn good story for boys, too. Excellent for bedtime reading and with enough rich illustration to challenge young readers to go it alone.