Fairy Tales (Jones book) - Misplaced Pages

For the 1965 book by E. E. Cummings, see Fairy Tales (Cummings book).

This article needs additional citations for verification. Please help improve this article by adding citations to reliable sources. Unsourced material may be challenged and removed.
Find sources: "Fairy Tales" Jones book – news · newspapers · books · scholar · JSTOR (October 2015) (Learn how and when to remove this message)

Fairy Tales
First edition
Author	Terry Jones
Illustrator	Michael Foreman
Language	English
Genre	Children's literature
Publisher	Pavilion Books
Publication date	1981
Publication place	England
Pages	127
ISBN	978-0-907516-03-3
OCLC	16549141

Fairy Tales is a 1981 book of children's stories written by Monty Python's Terry Jones and illustrated by Michael Foreman with both ink drawings and watercolour paintings.

The book tells an assortment of short fantasy tales, such as "Simple Peter", about a boy with a mirror that shows you as others see you, and the tale of a little girl who is offered the chance to take a magical trip to Goblin City, but spends so long fretting about the trip that eventually the friendly goblin who made the offer takes it back.

The tales are told with an irreverent voice and comic nonsense. At one point the stars are heard to sing, "Boodle-dum dee, boodle-dum dar, isn't it fun, being a star?" To which the moon answers, "I'm just the moon, but that's fine by me, so long as I hear that boodle-dum dee!" Some of the dialogue is surprisingly adult ("That is one hell of a beautiful butterfly", says an admiring frog) and some of the tales end on a rather sad note, but they also feature the old-fashioned lessons and fearsome monsters one would expect of fairy tales.

In April 2009, the book was chosen by Children's Laureate Michael Rosen as one of his five best children's stories of all time.

References

Alison Flood. Move over, Harry Potter – Just William is the best The Guardian, 28 April 2009

v t e Terry Jones
Books written	Bert Fegg's Nasty Book for Boys and Girls (1974) Fairy Tales (1981) The Saga of Erik the Viking (1983) Nicobobinus (1985) Douglas Adams's Starship Titanic: A Novel (1997) Evil Machines (2011)
Films directed	Monty Python and the Holy Grail (1975) Monty Python's Life of Brian (1979) Monty Python's The Meaning of Life (1983) Personal Services (1987) Erik the Viking (1989) The Wind in the Willows (1996) Absolutely Anything (2015)
Films written only	And Now for Something Completely Different (1971) Monty Python Live at the Hollywood Bowl (1982) Labyrinth (1986) Monty Python Live (Mostly) (2014)
TV series created	The Complete and Utter History of Britain (1969) Monty Python's Flying Circus (1969–1974) Monty Python's Fliegender Zirkus (1972) Ripping Yarns (1976–1979) Crusades (1995) Blazing Dragons (1996–1998) Ancient Inventions (1998) Terry Jones' Medieval Lives (2004) The Story of 1 (2005) Terry Jones' Barbarians (2006) Boom Bust Boom (2016)
Video games	Monty Python & the Quest for the Holy Grail (1996)

This article about a collection of short stories for children published in the 1980s is a stub. You can help Misplaced Pages by expanding it.

Categories: