The Light Princess - 4.5
The Shadows - 3.5
The Giants Heart - 3

Cross Purposes - 2.5
The Golden Key - 5

Little Daylight - High 2
Nanny's Dream - High 2
Diamond's Dream - 3

The Carosyn (part 1) - 3.5
The Carosyn (part 2) - 3
The Wise Woman/The Lost Princess - 4
The History of Photogen and Nycteris - 5 ( )

I probably could have enjoyed this more if I ever sat and read each story in one sitting, but they were a bit long for my attention span. I can't imagine any children young or older, enjoying these stories as even the Grimm and Anderson fairy tales have been Disney-fied and they can read the books that match the movie. All to say that these stories have good morals and can teach if you're patient. ( )

Mildly interesting. A few of the stories were pleasant; several were random patches of story, without any arc or plot let alone an ending (The Shadows was particularly annoying). I liked the later ones, that the author of the introduction thought were too sad and shouldn't have been written. There was actual story there, though MacDonald is really bad at endings - most of the stories more or less trail off without coming to real conclusions (not even "and they lived happily ever after"). These are pure fairy tales, not the "modern" ones that build solid characters and put them into fairy-tale situations; the characters here are more outlines than people. The Lost Princess characters have the most depth, because that's the point of the story, but they're still pretty shallow. Glad I read it, though I doubt I'll ever bother to reread. ( )

Classic tales that should be read by everyone. ( )

Possibly the language and era in which the tales in this book was written effected my enjoyment of this book. There were some tales in it that I did like, for example, The History of Photogen and Nycteris was quite good actually. Overall however, I found most of the tales to be preachy and in effect little more than sermons dressed up as fairy tales. This makes sense since the author, George MacDonald, was a Christian minister, but understanding in this case did not increase my enjoyment.

On a positive note, the tales are very well written. The introduction also contains some very good insights by the author about writing and fairy tales in general that I found interesting. I do not dispute that this is an important and influential work, I just did not find the majority of the book to be entertaining.

For those that enjoy reading the classics, don't let my review put you off. I am judging this book entirely by my enjoyment of it, not by its literary merit. I would say that it would be worth your time to give it a shot. You may find it much more rewarding than I did. ( )