Goldilocks and the Three Bears (BEDTIME CLASSICS LIBRARY)

Lost in the woods, a tired and hungry little girl finds the house of the three bears where she helps herself to food and goes to sleep

The fourth title in the publisher's Bedtime Classics Library, a series of reproductions of classic children's editions, Goldilocks & the 7-bree Bears is charming. The four-color illustrations are examples of children's book art from the 1920s - warm, lively plates figuring the traditional tale of a mischievous young girl upsetting a bear family's household. Well-reproduced on creamy, coated stock, the 24 plates depict the interiors of the bears' house whose gaily patterned wallpapers, curtains, bedspreads, and upholstery instill an overall effect of benign, if eccentric, domesticity. The Great Big Bear's floral house slippers are an extreme fashion statement when worn with his checkered vest, but this is the extent of the menace he invokes, and indeed the tone of both text and illustrations is calm and delightful throughout.It is unfortunate that the cover art is so vastly inferior to the plates that decorate the text. It is impossible to see this as the work of the same artist. While it may not be important to every parent, with the current fastidious interest in children's book arts and their antecedents, it is bibliographically disturbing not to be told anything of the original edition of which this is a facsimile. Who is the artist? Who is the author? When was the book published? The vague "famous old edition" of the publisher's blurb is not sufficient. The care taken to reproduce the figures and the text is obvious. If the purpose in bringing out this book is to allow new readers to experience the beauties of the original edition, the publisher is urged to identify the sources used.The text is good on the repetitions that form the story's structure. There is occasional lilt in the descriptions which show the hand of a competent craftsman: "She hopped out of bed and in a second was out through the open window, never stopping to wonder if the fall had hurt her." -- From Independent Publisher