Fairy tales revisited

Slate recently posted an in-depth review of Philip Pullman's new retelling of fifty classic fairy tales, Fairy Tales from the Brothers Grimm, which was written in honor of the tales' 200th anniversary. I'm totally going to buy this book (I love fairy tales), but the Slate article is well worth reading even if you're not much of a Brothers Grimm fan. It offers an excellent summary of the literary structure and historical impact of the stories, which I think is vital to what my mother calls "cultural literacy".