Other editions of book Classic Book Shelf/Companion Library Hardback Books: Call of the Wild, Grimms' Fairy Tales, Hans Brinker, Robinson Crusoe, Swiss Family Robinson

The story of Hans Brinker is a true classic, but few still read the novel, which was written in the 1860s. Now Bruce Coville and Laurel Long are reintroducing the charming tale in this glorious picture book version. Laurel Long's paintings are breathtaking and luminous. And as he has done in his retellings of Shakespeare's plays, Bruce Coville has masterfully reshaped the sprawling story into a picture book that's fresh, engrossing, and faithful to the intent of the original. This is a tale of a family sticking together through hardship, and of wishes granted just in the nick of time. The race to win the silver skates is well-known, but the mystery of the watch and the missing riches is equally enticing. This is the best kind of fairy tale, and kids will be riveted by its drama. For the winter holidays or anytime, this is a book to cherish.

Excerpt: ..."He was fortunate, then, in falling into gentler hands," was Peter's quiet reply; "it appears he has been arrested before under a charge of house-breaking. He did not succeed in robbing this time, but he broke the door-fastenings, and that I believe makes a burglary in the eye of the law. He was armed with a knife, too, and that makes it worse for him, poor fellow!" "Poor fellow!" mimicked Carl; "one would think he was your brother!" "So he is my brother, and yours, too, Carl Schummel, for that matter," answered Peter, looking into Carl's eye. "We cannot say what we might have become under other circumstances. We have been bolstered up from evil, since the hour we were born. A happy home and good parents might have made that man a fine fellow instead of what he is. God grant that the law may cure and not crush him!" "Amen to that!" said Lambert, heartily, while Ludwig van Holp looked at his brother in such a bright, proud way that Jacob Poot, who was an only son, wished from his heart that the little form buried in the old church at home had lived to grow up beside him. "Humph!" said Carl, "it's very well to be saintly and forgiving, and all that sort of thing, but I'm naturally hard. All these fine ideas seem to rattle off of me like hailstones