Wild Swans

Wild Swans is a retelling of Hans Christian Andersen’s fairy tale. It differs from the original tale by making the stepmother a healer instead of a witch. In this version, the princess, Eliza, has a stepmother who is trying to find a cure for a deadly plague. The girl has eleven brothers. Her stepmother wants the princes to see the world and protect them from the plague at the same time, so she turns them into eleven wild swans. The brothers become human at night. The stepmother dies before she can undo the spell. Eliza has a dream that she can lift the spell if she knits shirts made of stinging nettles for her brothers. She cannot speak until her brothers are turned back into human form, and she is almost killed for being a witch. Instead of marrying a king at the end, Eliza becomes queen of her father’s empire, and each of her brothers rules a kingdom.

This book is for someone who likes fairy tales and can already read well but enjoys pictures. There are many full-page illustrations with gold paint accents. They look like they took a long time to draw because they are very detailed with patterns of dots and lines. The beautiful pictures are the best part of this book.