Author Information
Avery Reed is an editor at Grosset & Dunlap. She lives with her husband in New York.

Excerpt

Who were the Brothers Grimm?

"Once upon a time," began an old peasant woman, "there was a queen whose husband had been dead for many years, and she had a beautiful daughter."

A young man named Wilhelm Grimm listened attentively to the woman's story. She had probably heard it as a small child from her own mother. It was a German fairy tale titled "The Goose Girl." The tale is about a magical spell, a talking horse, an evil servant, and a princess who seems doomed to spend her life tending geese for a king who believes she is a peasant.

Wilhelm had traveled to the rural areas of Germany to meet Dorothea Viehmann and listen to her stories.