Once upon a Fairytale

Packed full of illustrative detail, this book is an enchanting ‘choose you own story’ fairytale adventure. At each page-turn the reader can select from a varied menu, who, what, why, when or where the tale should begin and continue. For example; Once upon… a golden morning… a fairy’s birthday… a cosy teatime … a rainy Tuesday… a broken armchair … there was a … and here follow eight jolly characters from whom to select the hero to enact the adventure.  The hero, dressed in a disguising red cloak, meets so many different storybook characters, maybe sitting down to eat … newt pie and pig-tail pudding, with warlocks. The hero rescues various creatures from various calamities, and each time is rewarded with a gift of … a blue whale… a flying bed…. a ring to turn you into a fish, … or a talking wolf. Home eventually, still wearing the disguising red cloak, to a marvellous party where everyone from the whole book attends. The illustrations burst with colour and great detail, and the final party page is a riot of fun and laughter. There is a definite feel of Austrian castles in the landscapes, with bright flowers, and fly agaric toadstools abound. The O’Hara sisters reveal that they are life-long fans of fairy tales, and their book is peopled by characters who could happily have jumped out of Hans Andersen, or brothers Grimm. One to be tackled one to one with an adult or older reader, but also one to which readers can happily return time and again for a completely different adventure.