Rose Red & Snow White: A Grimms Fairy Tale

It always seems like sunset in this straightforward, amiable retelling of the Grimm fairy tale about two opposite but equally adorable sisters. Sanderson (Papa Gatto) uses rusty tones and a heavy hand with highlights, creating heroines whose warm coloring blends perfectly with the woods they roam in and with the firelit domesticity of their mother's neat cottage. This telling offers no departures from the original: the girls and their mother shelter a talking bear during the winter; the girls repeatedly rescue a snarling, ill-tempered dwarf; the bear slays the dwarf and is revealed as a prince. In Sanderson's pretty, traditional paintings he emerges in blond and golden glory, and later marries gentle homebody Snow White while his brother marries the more carefree, vivacious Rose Red. It's a pleasingly old-fashioned storybook edition of the classic tale; see Bernadette Watts's Snow White and Rose Red (see p. 77) for more childlike visuals and a crisp translation of the original. Ages 4-8. (Apr.)