Old favorites in affordable paperbacks
IN addition to the ``new'' classics reviewed on this page, there are several reissues of old favorites this season at affordable paperback prices. Snow-White and the Seven Dwarfs, a tale from the Brothers Grimm, translated by Randall Jarrell, pictures by Nancy Ekholm Burkert (Farrar, Straus & Giroux, $5.95, 32 pp., all ages), pulled in numerous awards when it was first published: It was a Caldecott Honor Book and an American Library Association Notable Book in the US, and won a prize at the Bologna Book Fair overseas.
The Wild Swans, by Hans Christian Andersen, retold by Amy Ehrlich, pictures by Susan Jeffers (Dial, New York, $4.95, 40 pp., ages 5 and up), originally won a Citation of Merit from the Society of Illustrators for its masterly illustrations. Youngsters will find contemporary touches in Jeffers's old-fashioned children and animals.
The Fisherman and His Wife, a tale from the Brothers Grimm, translated by Randall Jarrell, pictures by Margot Zemach (Farrar, Straus & Giroux, $4.95., 32 pp., ages 3 and up), is a lively rendition of a lesser-known Grimm tale. How the ``regular flounder'' convinces the fisherman that it is, in fact, an ``enchanted prince'' - deliverer of palatial riches and wishes - makes for great merriment. Zemach's topsy-turvy illustrations add to the enjoyable confusion.
