Sleeping Beauty (A 3D Puppet Wonder Book, Grosset & Dunlap, 1972, adapt. Oscar Weigle, pictures by T. Izawa and S. Hijikata)
This vintage board book retelling of "Sleeping Beauty" was published by Grosset & Dunlap as part of their 3D Puppet Wonder Book/Puppet Storybook collection. This wonderful collection features pictures of puppets staged and photographed by Tadasu Izawa and Shigemi Hijikata. For a list of other books in the series (and links to my reviews) see Puppet Storybooks/3D Puppet Wonder Books.
Cover and title page
The cover is white, with purple title and black and purple series title, and use of pink lines and borders. The front cover features a central 3D lenticular image of the prince in conversation with a woken princess.
There are no separate front and back endpapers – the front endpaper is the beginning of the double-spread title page, and the back endpaper is the final scene of the story.
The title page features a scene where the good fairies bring gifts to the baby princess. She lies in bed, the queen and king also hovering over her. (One fairy literally hovers in the air, an impressive staging feat.)
The back cover provides a list of Puppet Storybooks (unnumbered) and a description of the series.
Story by Oscar Weigle
"Sleeping Beauty" is tale type¹ 410 ("The Sleeping Beauty"). Although the first fully developed literary version is considered the Italian version by Giambattista Basile, elements of the story appear in many earlier tales (including the Völsunga saga). Most modern versions draw from elements of later well-developed versions, namely the first part of the French version by Charles Perrault ("The Sleeping Beauty in the Wood"), and the German version by the Brothers Grimm ("Little Brier-Rose").²
In this retelling by Oscar Weigle, which draws mostly from the Grimms version, all the "good fairies" of the kingdom are told of the royal birth and come with fine gifts, but "a wicked witch" is angry not to be invited and curses the child to die when she pricks her finger on a spindle. One good fairy had not yet given a gift and she "soften[s] the enchantment", changing it from death to a hundred year sleep.
The king orders all spinning wheels and spindles destroyed and the princess grows up "kind and happy – and ever so beautiful". One day, while wandering the castle, she finds the wicked witch disguised as an old woman and accepts her offer to try spinning. "[B]y not knowing exactly what to do, she handled it carelessly" and her finger is pierced. She falls asleep and so does everyone else in the castle. A "tall thorn hedge sprang up" and eventually the castle is hidden.
After a hundred years, "a handsome young prince from a far country was told about the sleeping princess". When he touches his sword to the hedge "the thorns drew back by themselves". He wanders through all the sleeping people and finds the princess asleep.
She looked so lovely that he stooped to kiss her. At the touch of that kiss, the enchantment was broken.
Everyone wakes up and "[s]oon afterward" they announce their love. A great feast follows their wedding and they live happily ever after.
I was a bit perplexed by the representation of the usual fairy that lays a curse as a "wicked witch", as it seemed unlikely that such a person would ever expect to be invited to a royal christening. (Perrault's version of the story has the king and queen inviting all the fairies they could find in the kingdom (seven), and only missing one fairy because she hadn't been seen in over 50 years and was assumed dead; the Grimms' king only invites 12 fairies, although he knows there are 13 of them in his kingdom, because he only has 12 gold plates!).
One element of interest is the wicked witch disguised as an old woman who gives the spindle to the princess. In the Perrault and Grimm versions of the story this old woman is not the bad fairy in disguise – she's simply an old woman who does not recognise the princess and somehow hasn't heard of the banning of the spindles (despite living the palace!). This plot hole was plugged by making the old woman the wicked fairy in disguise. If not an original invention of the Tchaikovsky ballet of 1890, then certainly its appearance in that ballet was influential (followed later by the Disney version), and most modern retellings have this twist.³
Pictures by Izawa and Hijikata
The puppets that are staged in photographs for this story are meticulously made and detailed. The little details of Izawa and Hijikata's work never cease to wow me – like the lamp in the tower room, the garlic hanging in the kitchen, and the fine details in the clothing the puppets wear.
The queen is dressed in a stunning pink brocade gown with wide ermine sleeves and the princess later appears in a similarly-coloured gown, but of quite a different style, appearing younger and more innocent. All three royals wear crowns, the queen's atop what appears to be a beautiful golden crespine/crespinette.
The prince wears a floppy blue hat with white feather and paned blue trunk hose with different coloured hose on each leg. The servants are each unique, from the stern herald to the snoozing chef to the jolly jester. I found the representation of the "wicked witch" particularly interesting, as she simply looks like an elderly woman. Most children's books of this era don't hesitate to represent the bad fairy as definitively ugly or monstrous (typically with a long nose, warts, claw-like hands, and wild, unkempt hair). This figure does have a longish nose but her villainy is instead perhaps indicated by her red-lined black cloak and brown witch's hat. In typical contrast, the good fairies are youthful and wear light pastel dresses, with flower wreaths atop their elegantly coiffed pale hair.
The baby princess is particularly delightful – look at that cherubic smile, and the elaborate detail in the embroidered bedding and carved wooden bed:
Summary and availability
This is another lovely addition to Izawa and Hijikata's 3D Puppet Wonder Book/Puppet Storybooks series, with story by Oscar Weigle.
A range of copies from different published editions are available online.
The story also appears to have been published by Purnell Happy Time Books (publication date unknown), as part of their "Deluxe Living Story Book" series:
Note that it is not the same book as another "Living Story Book" attributed to Izawa and Hijikata titled "Sleeping Beauty. Compare with:
