A Treasury of Children's Literature

The number and quality of stories in this book is excellent, and the book itself is of such quality that it can be passed down from generation to generation. If one can find a copy for the bargain price I did, so much the better.

There's a lot of great books out there, but children love the classics. My husband has been reading these to our boys before bed. They love it and cannot wait for story time. The pictures are wonderful and not dumbed down like Disney's junk.

This book is absolutely great. It contains the original stories (not the Disney-fied ones), and many full color illustrations to go along with them. My four year old daughter loves the book and looks forward to getting another story each night.

Such a beautiful, well presented fairytale book.
Great for kids & adults alike, I was looking for a book that had all the classic tales (plus extra) & this is just perfect. I recommend this to anyone who wants a gorgeous keepsake.

This is a baby shower present for my friend. It looks in very good condition and the pictures are unique and old world for these stories that I grew up with. I hope that she and the baby will love this book and find enjoyment it for many year to come.

Bought it for a baby shower that requested books instead of cards. It's dense and complicated and of no use at this point (the child is 2). I loved this when I was young, but by the time he, or we, can read it, technology will have pushed him in another direction.

I was looking for a book with all the classic stories to give my son as a keepsake for his first Christmas - this book ticks all the boxes. It has a hard cover, all the classic stories and fables, and has beautiful illustrations. Very happy with his book.

A Treasury of Children's Literature contains the most familiar stories, fairy tales, and nursery rhymes all in one book, all with magnificent illustrations. This is the one to buy for children of all ages to enjoy!

This was exactly what I wanted. My boys lost their original book when they went to a relatives house 5 years ago. They couldn't find it. The boys were so upset.We couldn't find the same book anywhere. We tried.. Time marched on.
A few weeks ago they brought up just how much they loved that book and wished we still had it or could find one. I finally found it!. Thank you!
Yes, my boys are older ,but they curled up on the couch and for an hour ... They were 5 & 6 again..They told me that they were going to share the book so someday they could read to their children. Melted my heart!! Fairytale's do come true!!

There is nothing like sitting down with your children at bedtime for a story. This book was purchased for my grandchildren so my daughter could enjoy that same time with her children. I chose this book for all the wonderful illustrations. I remember sitting in my mothers lap and enjoying the pictures as she read.

This turned out to be a nice collection for bedtime toddler reading--with some very short tales mixed with longer ones. My son really loves Stevenson's garden of verses. The art is a bit lacking and pretty much absent from some of the pages. That is my only complaint. Kids need more art to stay interested & give them something to look at.

Gave this as a gift at a baby shower. The expectant mother requested books so she could read to her child through the years. This book was the big hit since everyone else gave paperback or soft books that a baby could even chew on, this book can be read for years for children, grandchildren and passed down for future generations. In a world full of E-books, a hard bound book given with love can be treasured for a lifetime.

My daughter loves this book! I have a three year old and her attention span is just long enough to let me finish a story. Great book for reading. The pictures are ok but there are better quality pictures in different books. If you are a reader who is animated while reading (which I am), this book is just fine. The collection is really impressive to me though. It has so many stories in one location. It's our go to book for now.

I was very pleased. I looked at many different books and bought this one because it it has a little of everything - the classics to Mother Goose to Aesop's Fables. The illustrations are really nice, too!

While there are hundreds of books that contain collections of classic fairytales, what set this book apart were the gorgeous illustrations. They were vibrant, alive and drew the young reader's imagination into the tale. My nearly 5 yr. old grandson spent hours just staring at the illustrations, noting the details that made the characters come alive to him. I'm sure this will be a favorite book for a long time to come.

The book was in excellent condition. I purchased them for my grandchildren who live in another state. I did not see the book, but my daughter said the children were very happy and that the books were in excellent conditon.

It has some great stories, and some really long and boring ones. If you're buying it for part of a collection, then it's great. If you are buying this as your staple, then I'd choose something else.

It was Okay there were a lot of stories in there that my 6 and 8 year old weren't interested in. My 10 year old said they were ok but wasn't as good as the book we finished and was trying to find one like. The stories are okay but won't read all of them.

One of the most beautiful books I've ever seen.
But it came with scratches and dents all over.
The package was only a thin plastic wrap.
No protective paper or cardboard what so ever.
Really disappointing...

I just got this in the mail today, It was in great condition except for two things. A minor crease in the plastic mylar cover but that was probably from shelf wear. The other is a small tear in the paper part of the mylar coverin the top left front by the binding. I didn't notice right away, but its not ruined so I'm okay with it. I love the pictures and how tight the pages were. Unopened and the pages are clean. The shipping didn't take long.

This is a beautiful, but dark book. While the illustrations are lovely, many of them are very dark and somewhat scary. Not appropriate for a young child or bedtime reading. We bought this for my 3 year old who loves many of the stories in the book and she was frightened by so many of them that we stopped reading from it.

Ok, so I'm a little disturbed by some of the reviews here. These are the classics, and you should read them to your kids. Dark? Maybe, but no darker than reading the old testament or anything else like that. It's literature, children have been reading these stories for GENERATIONS and have turned out OK. And you know what? The original version of Rapunzel by the Brothers Grimm written in 1812 DID have Rapunzel giving birth to twins! These stories are enriching, they are stories of right and wrong, good triumphing over evil, and magic. You can't have great stories without these story lines, and in order to make the stories good - sometimes they have to be a little scary. This book is beautifully illustrated and will be a fantastic keepsake for your children. My little girl loves it. On top of the stories there are poems too, so if you feel need to hold off for some of the 'scarier' stories, get them for the poetry too!

There is a lot to like about this book, it is a compilation of children's classic stories and the stories are beautifully illustrated. This book serves as an excellent introduction to literature, giving children a sampling of the wide range of stories and genre's available in literature. The book contains excerpts from full length children's books, retelling of traditional fairy tales & other stories. The editing & organization of the book is excellent. The book is labelled for grades pre-K - 3 Not all of the stories will appeal to all of those ages, but there are plenty of stories that will appeal to those different ages. So why 4 stars? I feel that some of the classic stories just shouldn't be considered classic. I don't fault the editor for that, and I think its wise to expose children to such classic literature, but some of the stories are just poor literature. An example, Wind in the Willows, I found this book extremely boring as a child, and when I read the excerpt to my children they were like "huh?" Another example is "The Steadfast Tin Soldier, the story is just beyond weird and has no redeeming qualities. Myself and/or my children found about 75% of the stories enjoyable and worth rereading, the other 25% none of us enjoyed.

I am thrilled with the purchase of this book. I was looking for a book of fairy tales, and this one has all of the well-known fairy tales that I was looking for- both Grim and Anderson tales. It also has some folk tales, nursery rhymes, children's poems, and selections from favorite novels like Alice in Wonderland and Peter Pan. The illustrations are lovely. This definitely has the widest collection I could find. (Use the "look inside" feature to check out the table of contents.) I like to turn on netflix's fake fireplace (I don't have a real one), make some cocoa, and then read a story or two from this book for the children before bedtime. The toddler doesn't always pay attention to the longer stories, but my 8 year old loves this time, and the 3 year old will grow into it.

Beautiful, beautiful art in this book! What a sight for eyes sore from all those unsophisticated computer generated figures that seem to plague so many children's books these days. This book reminds me of the Ladybird books I owned as a child, with their realistic drawings and attention to detail. My three-year-old, who is impatient and usually flips to the next page before I'm done reading the current one, has never done that with this book. She's too busy taking in the pictures.

I had this book as a child (like 20 some odd years ago) and came looking for it because I want to reread it as an adult. Yeah, some of the stories weren't written with a perfect Disney ending. Amazingly, your children will be OK, and might even be better off for it. Give them something interesting and intelligent to think about, something other than rail thin princesses and perfect price charmings. Let them ask you questions, talk about the meaning behind the stories, discuss the cultural and economic differences, point out the way the Disney movies are different and why they are. Maybe even talk about things as crazy as death and love and sex (gasp!). Let your kids use their brains and become interested in something with a little more depth than a puddle. They'll be better off for it, I promise you.

This is a very beautiful book indeed, and the vast majority of the stories included are great. Classics like Sleeping Beauty and Little Red Riding Hood are required reading for cultural literacy (not to mention just plain fun). The poetry and tall tales are good as well.

I was surprised at the excerpts from larger books that were included. Selections of Peter Pan, Alice in Wonderland, The Nutcracker, and especially The Wind in the Willows were not favorites at our house. The reader is just thrown in the middle of these stories with no context as to who the characters are or what has happened before in the story. We will be skipping these selections in the future.

Another surprising inclusion was a mention of children being born out of wedlock to Rapunzel, but not everyone would be surprised or offended by that.

Over all, a good addition to our family's library with judicious reading on our part.

I bought this book two years ago when my daughter was 3 years old. We had just moved to China for my husband's work and were then without access to a public (English language)library. This one book added so much depth to our home library. Two years later we are still having fun rereading many stories plus we are trying to read all the ones we haven't read, yet. I think we only have about 4 stories left. The illustrations are also beautiful. We are currently enjoying the section of stories that are excerpts from longer stories. These passages are giving me ideas of which full-length books I will want to buy next.

I used to love hearing these stories as a child and also enjoy reading them to my children now. This book is quite comprehensive in the stories it includes and saves having to purchase many other books individually. The art work in the book is somewhat simple but the stories are for reading to your children.

My mother used to read the stories from this book to me at bedtime. This was one of my favorite books as a child. I have sense used the later printings of this book for my children and grand children. It is a compilation of many different works including selections from Aesop, Tales of Brer Rabbit, and other Classics. If you need just one book for bedtime stories, this is a great choice to get a wide variety of writing styles and story telling. I highly recommend this book to any parent or grandparent.

Ok, so I'm not even a child anymore but I never forgot this book. I used to read it all the time growing up, well past 8... until one day I gave all my beloved books to three boy cousins of mine and they didn't take care of them. Anyway, this is an excellent book and it's one I think that helps really young children to fall in love with reading. I was just sitting at work today and I thought about this book and wondered if I'd ever be able to get it back... and voil?!! YAY!!! :) I'm so happy to find it again, I'm ordering it right now :D

I bought this for a friend's first child. I was very excited when I actually got the book and could look through it. I felt like I had chosen a classic that my friend and her daughter could enjoy for years to come!!!

This beautiful book, filled with classic children's stories appeals to the eye of children and adults alike. The cover invites the reader to enter into a fantasy land and enjoy the delights of discovering anew the old favorites of days gone by. The stories are brought to life with vibrant color and imaginative illustrations.

Great if you want to traumatize your babies.
There are some very dark and sick stories,absolutely not appropraote for 4 year olds and up. There is a story about a little girl who is abused and rather than go home to her abusive father, she freezes to death on the streets. She halucinates a lot while dying.

I threw it in the trash can.

First some good points: The pictures are gorgeous! Beautiful art! Some of the short stories and rhymes are good to read. Bad points: Although the pictures are beautiful, there aren't enough of them. When you're sitting with a small child, you want pictures on every page to give them something to look at as you read. There are lots of double pages of nothing but text. My girl gets pretty bored with that. Also, the fairy tales are, granted like they were originally written, but that's not always a good thing. More modern adaptions improve on some things. A lot of the stories are very dark, depressing and scary. Also, you expect kids stories to be innocent with the main characters getting married and living happily ever after. Rapunzel and the Prince apparently were doing more than speaking romantic nothings in that tower. Their marriage plans were interfered with but Rapunzel was already pregnant and, when they reunited years later, she had already had his twins.

This is a beautiful book and I have only read to Repunzal, but that is when it fell apart for us. In the end of the story the blinded prince is able, by some miracle, to find his beloved Repunzal whom he was to marry. But when he finds her she is not alone. No, two small children are with her. It is THEIR twins! It may not bother many to read this to their children, but I don't want my child believing it is okay to have premarital flings.