The Twelve Dancing Princesses
As Told By Marianna Mayer
Illustrated by K.Y. Craft
Published by Morrow Junior Books
"What is your favorite fairytale?"
That is the question I asked friends and family this week. I received a host of answers including Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, Rapunzel, and my own personal favorite Sleeping Beauty. Then I asked a coworker and finally received an answer I was unfamiliar with, The Twelve Dancing Princesses. I was intrigued. Disney hadn't tapped into this fairytale, and neither had I. I decided that I needed to find this fairytale to focus on for this week.
The Twelve Dancing Princesses is a German fairytale originally published by the Brother Grimm. There have been various adaptations of this story told over time. Every story that I came across had a few key components in common and the general synopsis that there were twelve sisters that were all princesses that would go out dancing every night after their father, the king, would lock them in their bedroom.
I chose the Mulberry Books' version of this classic story, written by Marianna Mayer and illustrated by K.Y. Craft, in 1989. In this version of the story, a gardener discovers the girls are sneaking out to a secret castle at night to dance with princes, as they and the princesses are all enchanted. The gardener has a magic flower, that when worn as a boutonniere, makes him invisible. This is how he is able to follow and discover why the princesses slippers are so worn out each morning. The gardener falls in love with the youngest princess in this version, as the male hero does in each version of this story.
One of the main reasons I chose this story was because of the ending. In this version of the story, the youngest princess, name Elisa is the hero. She saves the gardener from falling under the trance that all the princesses and princes at the secret castle are under by taking his poisoned drink and throwing it on the floor. This act of love, saving the gardener, also breaks the spell and saves everyone else in the kingdom. I think that it has a very positive message, showing the princess as the heroine, instead of the damsel in distress.
The other main reason that I selected this version of The Twelve Dancing Princesses was due to the quality of the writing and illustrations. Each illustration looks like a mural from a museum and help evoke the essence of the time the story took place, centuries ago when kings and queens ruled over kingdoms.
The illustrations matched the text very well. In fact, the illustrations were done so well that without any text you are able to follow the events that are taking place. I truly enjoyed the detail of the illustrations in this book. The text of this story is well written and although it is quite lengthy, I found it to be engaging and an enjoyable read, that I would want to share with my future classes.
There was an additional version of this story that I considered using, written by Susanna Davidson and illustrated by Anna Luraschi in 2007. There were a few notable differences with this version. Firstly, this story was clearly written for a younger audience. While the Mulberry version had paragraphs of text on each page, this version had a line or two, making it an acceptable selection for younger students to read independently. Also, the illustrations are much cleaner and basic, using brighter colors; also it seems to appeal to a younger audience.
The final difference in this version was that the story seemed truer to the Brothers Grimm version in the sense that there were many "heroes" that tried to discover the princesses secret, and all failed and were beheaded. I was surprised to find this part of the story translated for children in this book, because it seemed as though the author and illustrator had made many adjustments to allow this book to be accessible to children and yet kept the idea of having people suffer a penalty of death as something that was not altered. For this reason, I did not select the Davidson/Luraschi version of Twelve Dancing Princesses. With that said, I think comparing and contrasting various versions of this fairytale is something I would definitely want to do with a class. I think that modeling comparing the two, and other versions, could lead to an entire unit looking at folktales and fairytales and making connections and assessments.
One of my favorite part of reading is discovering new, old and retold stories, and for this reason I am very glad to have been introduced to The Twelve Dancing Princesses!
