The Wild Swans

I've always been a fan of fairy tales. Princesses. Wicked stepmothers. Clueless fathers. Brothers who need tending. The dark and mysterious forest. Magic spells.

This story has all of these things. It's an old folktale, though you probably know best the version by Hans Christian Andersen.

I won't be surprised if this is your new favorite version of the story.




Jackie Morris has taken the short story and expanded it into a 175 page tale, complete with rich characters and a magnificent setting.

It's illustrated into a beautiful treasure of a book.




The plot? The king and his wife and their twelve children are very happy until the queen dies.




Soon after, the king meets and marries a strange woman in white.




Inexplicably, the king hides his children from their new stepmother. When she learns of the existence of the children, the stepmother finds them and turns the brothers into wild swans.




The beautiful princess must sew shirts for each of her eleven brothers in order to restore them into humans. And, while she sews, the princess must not speak or her brothers will die.

It's a rich, beautiful story. So happy I got to read and review this book.