The classic French fairy-tale of Beauty and the Beast is given an Elizabethan flavor in this picture-book retelling by Carol Heyer. Or so the front dust-jacket blurb asserts, although I myself was unable to observe much in the way of an Elizabethan influence, and found the style more reminiscent of a romance novel cover, with a little dash of fantasy fiction thrown in, than of any genuine historical period. As a style, it feels rather au courant, as it happens.

With a text that feels choppy, and has none of the expressive beauty of some other versions (Max Eilenberg's retelling, and Nancy Willard's, are both lovely), and artwork that is flat and unappealing, this Beauty and the Beast is not one I would recommend, even to fans of the tale. The colors used by Heyer in her artwork are either garish or unfitting - a blue rose! a hot-pink dress for Beauty! pastel-green shrubbery! - while the scenes depicted bear little resemblance to the story. It's really rather odd: Heyer will write that the merchant looks out on a rose-embowered courtyard, and then paint a courtyard with no roses; or she'll describe the merchant fleeing through the night-time forest, and stumbling upon the Beast's castle, and then depicts a castle that looks, for all the world, as if it were standing in a field, or in some very clear (treeless) area. The merchant rides home on a beautiful white horse that somehow mysteriously (and with no explanation offered) becomes the winged horse that Beauty uses to travel to the Beast's castle. The final few panels, with Beauty and her Beast (now a prince) reunited, look for all the world like they belong in a science fiction story: the moon hangs prominently above them, their eyes glow green, etc.

All in all, a singularly unappealing retelling of this beloved story, one that leaves me feeling distinctly confused, as I note that the artist has worked on numerous other fairy-tales, from Sleeping Beauty to Rapunzel. The mind, it boggles... ( )