Of all the stories my father read to me as a child, this was my favorite. Its endearing story of self-discovery is timeless, and not to mention quite humorous for a six year old boy. It reminds me of a time far less complicated and will thus always hold a special place of affection for me. This was the Catcher in the Rye of my Elementary years. I would highly recommend this to anyone with children looking for quite simply a flat out good story to read them that they will enjoy.

The Breman Town Musicians is a simple story that involves setting goals and team work. It has two things that children love, music and animals. What a combination!

As a 17 year childcare veteran, I highly recommmend this book. Kids today can use all the inspiration they can get. A great way to learn is to read. I read this book to my daughter when she was a child. Now I am getting a new copy for my grand daughter.

I bought this book to continue teaching little Japanese children (4-7) partly brought up in the states classic western children stories, but then realised that the stories had all been shortened- some to a point they were not understandable. I thought a lot of the messages the original writers were trying to portray were lost, and the children found the pictures scary. There were a lot of stories I had not heard of, and very few of the ones I would have called classics.

I just want to warn that the pictures are fairly dark and gloomy and that the stories have been adapted and shortened a lot in some cases. Most stories only have one picture of a single scene and are very heavy on words, whereas children tend to find it much easier to follow if there are more pictures.

If you love stories, you'll really enjoy this. My students did. Also nice to add to your collection are: Aesop for Children (Winter), Grimm's complete fairy tales (Grimm), Great Children's stories (Richardson), The Butterfly (Singh). There are many other great children's books out there, but these were the ones I enjoyed the most. Oh, and I almost forgot the two classics that no children should ever be deprived of: The Little Prince (Exupery) and Charlotte's Web (White).

Although I prefer realistic illustrations the artisty of Eric Carle is fun to look at and the bold, splashy colors of his tissue-paper collages get the attention of children. The book contained a good mix of fairy tales from Hans Christian Anderson and the Brothers Grimm, as well as some of Aesop's Fables. The book had some tales that I had never heard such as The Marsh King's Daughter and The Traveling Companion, and the rendition of The Wild Swans is one of the best I have read. My favorite illustration was of the horse in Tom Thumb.