A Handful of Beans: Six Fairy Tales Retold

With its modest yet mischievous title an entirely fitting harbinger of the tone and tales to come, A Handful of Beans is an ample demonstration that, yes, we can use another "Jack and the Beanstalk" (and another "Rumpelstiltskin, " "Beauty and the Beast, " "Hansel and Gretel, " "Little Red Riding Hood, " and "The Frog Prince"). While fairy-tale parodies and updates are perhaps too much with us these days, Jeanne Steig goes the trend one better in her homely retellings, adding the gentlest touches of wit without ever betraying the story: after the king sees what Rumpelstiltskin has spun the first night, for example, he says to the miller's daughter, "My, my...what a lovely surprise. We must do this again." Steig also provides illuminating detail. When Hansel and Gretel go to sleep in the witch's house, it is under "sheets as soft as a spider's web, " and Red Riding Hood's wolf is a suave seducer: "But see here, my girl. Violets are blooming, finches are singing, the sun is tickling the little green leaves, and here you are, tramping along as if you were late for school. Why don't you look around you a bit, and enjoy the world?" As you can easily see, these tales would be great fun for reading aloud, and occasionally bits of verse, beautifully scanned, provide an incantatory charm of their own: "Pardon me, Mistress, the door is so small, / I could never squeeze into the oven at all." William Steig's line-and-watercolor illustrations, four or five per story, are humble and funny, and the book's compact size is just right for a little one-on-one session in cultural literacy.