Recommended to anyone looking for the original version of The Nutcracker for younger children. The artwork, moreover, is simply gorgeous, featuring numerous enchanting details - many of the items on the page are presented as if they were Christmas tree ornaments or mechanical toys - and a vibrant and sumptuous color scheme. That said, although young readers (especially American ones) might be more familiar with the version of the tale found in the ballet, the story here is quite exciting, full of magical transformations and tense confrontation - the conflict between the Nutcracker and the Mouse King!, the Nutcracker turning into a prince! - sure to please. Here Marie has kept her original name, and her adventures in the land of sweets include no dancers.

The Nutcracker & the Mouse King is a picture-book adaptation of the original Hoffman tale however, done by German children's author Renate Raecke, and illustrated by Russian artist Yana Sedova, who has also worked on a beautiful version of Andersen's The Snow Queen. Many readers might be more familiar with the story from the ballet, in which Marie's name has been changed to Clara, and which features a number of scenes in which dancers from different parts of the world present Clara with the treats famous in their region. Hoffman's magical holiday tale was adapted by the French author Alexander Dumas, père in 1844, which version was then used in the famous ballet by Tchaikovsky, first performed in 1892. A clever man with a talent for mechanical inventions, Godfather Drosselmeier brings them a wooden Nutcracker who subsequently features in Marie's fantastical dreams that Christmas Eve night, leading the charge against a fearsome seven-headed Mouse King, and then escorting the young girl on a trip to a magical land of sweets, where he himself is prince.Originally published in 1816, E.T.A.

Marie Stahlbaum and her brother Fritz eagerly await the arrival of their godfather and the gifts and toys he will bring them in this classic German Christmas fairy-tale.

Nutcracker by E.T.A. Hoffmann