Beauty and the Beast

Beauty and the Beast was retold by Marianna Mayer and illustrated by Mercer Mayer.

Fairy Tale

3rd - 5th Grade

3.5 out of 5

Beauty and the Beast is about Beauty, a beautiful, non-judgemental, loving daughter, who in order to save her father's life takes his spot when threatened by the beast. After living with him for a long time she falls in love with him and he turns into a handsome prince and they live happily ever after.

I really liked Beauty and the Beast. The plot was similar to the plot of the famous Disney movie but also different in many ways. That is one of the reasons I liked it because it was not the exact same story as the one I already knew. The differences were that Beauty had sisters who were very different from her and lived sad lives, the father was not held in a cage waiting for the daughter to come he was allowed to go get her and she had a choice if she wanted to take his spot, and in the movie her name was Belle. I think that the illustrations in the book were very beautiful; they were very detailed, fantastical, and elegant. I was really able to get to know the characters through their description. I was able to understand that Beauty would do anything for her father, she is not worried about how she lives, and she is gentle and kind. I was able to understand that the Beast, although his name sounds threatening, is really also very gentle, loving, and put others needs over his own.

This book would be a good book to use when teaching different genres, with this book being a fairy tale. You could go through with students what makes up fairy tales and how they differ from other books. You could use it to make comparisons and differences between the Disney movie and the story, and also the many other remakes of this story.