Titania and Oberon
Titania and Oberon spoke to me from across the room - I immediately gravitated to the cover illustration by Phyllis Bray. The lushly illustrated pages continued within, and I knew I wanted to make this book my daughter's special present to bring back from Italy. This book is wrapped and under our Christmas tree, waiting to be discovered! I bought it at Fox Gallery in Rome on my holiday vacation.
This printing is a reissue of a 1945 excerpt from Shakespeare's A Midsummer Night's Dream, in which Titania the Queen of the Fairies is put under a spell by Puck and King Oberon which causes her to fall in love with a lowly weaver who's head has been enchanted to look like that of a donkey's.
After exquisite full-color endpapers, we get a nice bio on Bray - her background and work - then the story begins, ornately depicted with magical dreamscapes and fantastic mythological beings.
This is a sweet introduction to Shakespeare, but if all the language ends up being beyond my six-year-old, I don't even care. Just to immerse oneself in the images is enough! Hardcover and bound in blue linen book cloth, it feels substantial and luxurious as a special gift.
GRADE LEVEL: 2 - 7
