King in Waiting by Alex Marchant
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

King in Waiting continues the adventures of Matthew Wansford, one-time page to Richard, Duke of Gloucester (later King Richard III), now servant and scribe to young Edward Plantagenet (by right King Edward V). Once again, as with the previous two volumes, Alex Marchant flawlessly combines fact and fiction. I have been increasingly amazed with this technique in each book, and even more so with the latest: King in Waiting is set in a time filled with unknowns, confusion, and rumours. Rather than shy away from this fact, Marchant places the fictional characters right in the thick of it, filling in very plausible explanations of what may have truly been happening. While many works (both fiction and non-fiction) have attempted to identify Warbeck, this is my favourite ‘theory’ thus far. I never dreamed there would be children’s fiction centred around these particular events and figures, and the Order of the White Boar series continues to be a dream come true. I look forward to the time when my daughter can read them.

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The Snow Queen by Hans Christian Andersen
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Now, this is more like it. Though extensively abridged for this picture-book retelling, it retains (almost all) the most important bits and hits nearly all the highlights. Most importantly, it keeps true to the spirit of the story and doesn't attempt to secularize it like *cough* Certain Other Retellings. The only 'bummer' here is the complete omission of Grandmother.

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A Midsummer Night's Dream: A BabyLit® Fairies Primer by Jennifer Adams
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

I absolutely adore the BabyLit series, especially the fact that they are 'primers' rather than attempts to retell or summarize the classics on which they're based. That said, many of them contain short quotations from their sources, which you can read aloud or not, as you please. And this one is entirely made up of snippets from the play. I thought we would mainly be skipping those at first, but my daughter loves them! Accompanying the delightful verses are brightly-colored pictures that look good enough to eat (and most assuredly my daughter tries).

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The Snow Queen by Hans Christian Andersen
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

The Snow Queen has been my most beloved fairy tale of all time for twenty years at least, and I don't see that changing any time soon. That being the case, I am rather addicted to reading every single version I can get my hands on. At the same time, I find myself quite critical of the 'retellings' - including this one. I understand The Snow Queen is a bit long for a fairy-tale, and the need to slightly abridge the story for picture-book is legitimate. It makes sense to leave out, for example, the various flowers' stories at the end of the enchantress' section. However, this is not only an abridgement but a retelling - and one with a clear agenda to remove all spirituality from the tale, thus making the entire thing fall rather flat.

For all that, the illustrations are stunningly gorgeous, and I will absolutely be keeping this version - it's wonderful to look at, if nothing else.

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The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe Board Book by C.S. Lewis
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

At last, a board book edition of The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe! Joey Chou's illustrations are beautiful, although the storytelling is only "okay." If I'm honest, my chief beef is that it begins in past tense, then switches to present tense for the rest of the book. All right, just have the whole thing be in present tense, then! Another thing is that Edmund's entire character is boiled down to "he just wants candy." I get it, this is a simplified version, not meant to be the entire book, but...I don't want my little ones thinking that that's Edmund's one and only motivation! The story could have been summarized much better overall; this seems rushed. (We are not even told who wrote this summary text. No one wants to admit to it, perhaps?) Still, I'm happy this lovely little book exists, and I look forward to using it to introduce my children to Narnia before they are ready to read the books. Probably I will show them the beautiful illustrations and summarize the story myself, rather than read the text provided here.

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