This book is a bit on the long side for my 5 year old, but we both enjoyed it. The premise is similar to the Harold & the Purple Crayon books in that the boy is able to get himself out of jams by drawing or cutting the pages of the book. The broader lesson is about not defacing books. ( )

My librarian read it to me at school. ( )

A gentle funny riff on classic fairy tales. Cool and hip, and maybe a little meta journey through a child's reaction to classic stories.

Children's picture book

I love this book. It's a little post modern, but plays perfectly into the reaction of media overloaded culture on classic fairy tales.

Kids can definitely relate to this book. The stories are classic, pre Disney, fairy tales and the protagonist is brilliant at navigating the skewed world of classic fantasy. Childs' illustrations are like your cool older sister, unique, sophisticated, cute and fun. ( )

This is a superb picture book for children aged 4 to 8, who know some classic fairy tales and can appreciate the humour as they get mixed up. Lauren Child's delightfully engaging collage-cartoon pictures draw us in to the adventures of Herb, who accidentally falls into a book of fairy tales one night, and finds the characters are annoyed with him. Goldilocks doesn't appreciate Herb in the middle of her big scene with the three bears. On another page, the queen is annoyed that Herb once drew a mustache on her with ballpoint pen, and cut out her throne to make a model spaceship, and added telephones to all the rooms in the castle. And why is Prince Charming missing from the ball?
Wonderful humour and surprises on every page, a delight for children who have perhaps never encountered a book about books before. Highly recommended. ( )