The Twelve Dancing Princesses-Ruth Sanderson

Ruth Sanderson's retold and illustrated "The Twelve Dancing Princesses" is full of exquisitely detailed oil paintings that kept me staring at the pictures as a child...and as an adult.

My sister had put these gold leaves in the page where Lina (Sanderson's name for the heroine) approaches Michael (the soldier/commoner of this version) with the leaves from the gold forest he put in her flower bouquet (Michael gets work as the Royal Gardener. Overall the story is pretty true to the Grimms', though.)

Once, I was telling this fairy tale as a bedtime story to some little girls I babysit. When I got to the part where the eldest Princess claps her hands and the trapdoor in their room opens (although in one of my Grimm translations, she doesn't clap her hands, but just taps the bed), the oldest girl, who was then about 6, got all excited and said, "If WE clapped our hands, maybe a door will open up in OUR room!" Sadly, it didn't work. I love the optimism and enthusiasm of children, though.