The king cannot figure out why his 12 daughters have holes in their shoes each day until one king's son meets an elderly lady and she gives him the tools needed to figure out the mystery. Once he does, he gets to marry the oldest daughter as he wishes. Part of the appeal of this story is the mystery of what the princesses do at night to get holes in their shoes, but the king's son would not have figured this out without help from the elderly lady he met. The ending seemed to lead to "happily ever after" quite quickly and left something to be desired, in my opinion. ( )

This classic Grimm story tells of a solider who to wins a bride and a kingdom, endeavors to discover why the dancing shoes of the king's twelve daughters are worn to pieces every night. I enjoyed the illustrations of this story as the dresses introduced the German culture. I personally loved how the boats were shaped like shoes. I also enjoyed the mystery of this tale as the reader has to make predictions about the princesses. My reasoning for the rating of this book is the ending. I felt the ending was rather abrupt and didn't feel natural. ( )

An old soldier discovers the secret to the princesses' worn-out dancing shoes. ( )

This book is about 12 princesses who wear holes in their shoes, and so the father wanted to know why every morning their shoes had holes. So, he asked if any man could find the reason, he may have one of his daughters as a wife. This is a neat, large book that I think most girls will love. ( )

The Bothers Grimm's The Twelve Dancing Princesses and Other Fairy Tales is a collection of some of their most famous and lesser known tales. Some of the tales included are Snowdrop (aka Snowhite), Rapunzel, Briar Rose, The Goose Girl and the titular The Twelve Dancing Princesses.

For those used to Disneyized interpretations these classics will be a bit of a shock. Some of the stories have a happy ending but on the whole are darker than what we are used to. This is a good book for reading to children and showing them what the original stories are like. Although the tags here include picture book the version I read does not have any illustrations. It is simply a pocket sized book of fairy tales. ( )