title: The Hard Facts of the Grimms' Fairy Tales: Expanded Second Edition
author:  Maria Tatar 
description: "Tatar's main concern is with the enduring hold of the tales on children's imaginations. Why should they enjoy stories about other children sent out to die in a wood, or being victimized by cruel stepmothers, or given impossible tasks to perform, and (if female) forced to marry frogs or bears? . . . <i>The Hard Facts of the Grimms' Fairy Tales</i>--related in language that is sharp, lively, and free of jargon--is delightful evidence that Grimm scholarship can give pleasure to the general reader."<b>---Janet Adam Smith, <i>New York Review of Books</i></b><br /><br />"For scholars, students, and general readers, Tatar's book is a balanced, sensitive, and informative guide to the content and context of Grimms' fairy tales."<b>---Merle Rubin, <i>The Christian Science Monitor</i></b><br /><br />"Tatar takes detours into literary history here and into comparative anthropology there. What results is at once intelligently eclectic and refreshingly commonsensical, a thoughtful ramble through the dark childhood woods that haunt our adult dreams."<b>---Carl Maves, <i>San Francisco Chronicle</i></b><br /><br />"A clear, imaginative and fascinating illumination of the stories we thought we knew." (<i>Los Angeles Times Book Review</i>)
zlib_text: **This is a special edition that includes the Grimm Diaries Prequels 1,2, and
  3, edited and revised versions, until the 28 **th** of June 2012. If you have
  read the first two prequels, please skip for the third diary, Beauty Never
  Dies, book 3.**
  
   ****
  
  The Grimm Diaries Prequels are short diary teasers for the upcoming Young
  Adult series called The Grimm Diaries, which will be out October 30. The
  series tells an imaginary story about a world where fairy tales were twisted
  and rewritten. You can read the Prequels as an introduction to the series or
  as stand-alone short twisted fairy tales. It’s not necessary by any means to
  have read the prequels before the series.
  
  – 06/14/2012 Cameron
  
  This book is a work of fiction. The names, characters, places, and incidents
  are
  
  products of the writer's imagination or have been used fictitiously and are
  not to be
  
  construed as real. Any resemblance to persons, living or dead, actual events,
  
  locales or organizations is entirely coincidental.
  
  Al