Children's ✦ Penny’s Take
The Tales of Mother Goose
Charles Perrault · 2014
70/100
👍 Worth It
Perrault's 1697 collection is genuinely foundational — Cinderella, Sleeping Beauty, Little Red Riding Hood, and Bluebeard all live here in their literary form, and the cynical moral verses add a layer of adult wit that makes these more than children's stories. But parents expecting sanitized fairy tales will be genuinely surprised: this edition carries the original darkness intact, with no editorial apparatus to contextualize it for modern young readers. The 10+ age rating is honest, and the content warrants a parental preview.
✦ Penny’s Take — this is The Review Group’s own editorial assessment. Penny’s analytical review line researched this book from real sources and scored it across the lenses shown below. It’s an honest first-party read — not a page-by-page personal one. The gold ✓ Penny Tested mark is reserved for books Penny reads cover to cover herself.
⚠ Parent note — our reviewers flagged: 17th-century violence including child-eating ogres, Bluebeard's wife murders, and wolf devouring child; parental review recommended for under-10 readers. We still scored it 70; these are context for your family, not an automatic skip.
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Show the math
Verdict receipt0–100
Faith & family safety62
Substance / usefulness84
Craft & writing84
Originality90
Evidence & accuracy90
Hype vs delivers80
Age-fit68
👁 Human-eye gut-check78
Penny’s verdict70
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