Turns out this is an annotated bibliography. Basic tale, plus a list of a dozen or fewer alternates, 27 times.... Nice, but gee.... $50 new, when groups and listopias already give most of the info. free? I've got it on my wishlist from half.com, but even used seven years on it's almost $12 there.

Anyway, it's a great idea. Very handy reference for anyone in a readers' advisory position. Very incomplete, though, and includes mention of books that I happen to know rare/ oop/ expensive. *If* your library will let you check it out (or if you have time to sit with it and take notes), and you're interested in (mostly picture-book) divergent versions of Beauty and the Beast, Stone Soup, The Princess and the Pea, and two dozen other tales, take a look.

Btw, the preface ain't much, but there is a bibliography of original sources, and 5 indexes that include the three you'd expect: author, illustrator, title, plus one for country/culture and one for motif (ie, birds, jewelry, music [rock, big band, zydeco...] etc.) ( )