This 1922 collection of short fairy tales by Ruth Plumly Thompson\'s successor to the Oz series is available here.
The tales are very much in Thompson\'s usual style (whether that\'s a good or a bad thing is up to you to decide), but have a more traditional feel than her Oz.
There\'s also a general undercurrent of learning to treat everyone with respect, but that\'s pretty much a constant in fairy tales.
Interestingly, considering that its lead story is about leaving childhood behind, the general theme of several of these tales is to embrace youthful fun.
Finally, "The Princess Who Could Not Dance" has a Princess learning that dancing should be fun and not purely calculated.
While the giant is introduced as a sympathetic character, the ending plays his rather unfortunate fate for laughs. "The Last Giant" is about a giant who falls in love with a Princess and uses magic to bring himself down to normal human size.
I kind of think Thompson tried to put in too much plot twists for such a short story, but it\'s charming nonetheless. "The Tailor of Nevermindwhere" brings a tailor to a kingdom where the nobles refuse to pay for their clothes, and has him teach them a lesson in humility, as well as demonstrating the old adage that clothes make the man.
Kind of a dark twist at the end there.
His son discovers a cure for baldness, but when the king uses too much, he\'s smothered to death by hair.
In "The Bald-Headed Kingdom," the only story in the collection to be divided into stories, a king is so sensitive about his baldness that he orders the heads of all his subjects shaved. "The Prince with a Cold in His Heart" tells how a wise man saves a prince from snobbishness by magically showing him the boy he could be.
Its view on growing up seems to be that it\'s sad but inevitable, and it\'s hard not to feel bad for the toys.
The first story, shares its title with the book, is about growing up, in which the titular Princess is captured by the Giant Grownupness and leaves her toys behind.
This 1922 collection of short fairy tales by Ruth Plumly Thompson\'s successor to the Oz series is available here
