A review by mat_tobin
The Kingdom Under the Sea and Other Stories by Joan Aiken

4.0

Aiken has written 3 other collections of fairy tales like this as this specific gathering celebrates the retelling of eleven East European folk tales. Aiken never puts a word wrong in this collection involving dragons, knights, helpful animals and angels and does not hold back in her rich imagery and language. Many pages are accompanied again by Pienkowski's familiar silhouette style. In order to find the right balance between word and image, he had more control over where the narrative went, charted the progression of colours and was allowed to colour the initials of the first word of each story (which is a gorgeous addition). Great to learn and retell to KS1 or read aloud and explore with KS2.