The Twelve Dancing Princesses

Even though The Twelve Dancing Princesses is Marianna Mayer's retelling of a traditional story, I was not familiar with it prior to reading this book other than the Barbie movie version.

 Accompanied by K. Y. Craft's paintings, Mayer introduces the story with a young farmer Peter who has a vision that he should go to the castle in the hopes that he will "succeed where others have failed," leading to him being able to marry a princess. Then it shifts to set the stage for a mystery at the castle that has the king perplexed and worried.There are many twists and turns  before reaching the happily ever after style conclusion.

While the book jacket lets the readers know that it is a traditional story, I was sad to see that there was not an author's note to provide more background about the history of it or to provide insights into the author's thought process while retelling. I was further dismayed when I went to get the link to the book on Amazon and saw the review by The School Library Journal stating, "In this lavishly illustrated but poorly structured retelling of the classic Grimm tale, Mayer retains little of the original, making major and inexplicable changes in the story [...]" I love to read updates to traditional stories, but I like to understand the background and notice the similarities and differences between versions. I guess that if I want to familiarize myself with the original or at least historically earlier versions of the tale, I will need to keep looking! Soon I will be reading Diane Zather's The Thirteenth Princess.