A new series of children's classics has been released by Harper Festival publishers, which will thrill fans of Mary Engelbreit. Each book in the series has a cover designed by Mary with her characteristically sweet illustrations. The books are a comfortable size good quality paper, and an illustrated laminated cover.
These are nice renditions of the classic children's books such as Peter Pan, however, I was more than a little disappointed to find that there wasn't a single interior illustration by Ms. Engelbreit, unless you count the little sketch of Tinkerbell that adorns each chapter heading.
I had hoped that Ms. Engelbreit would have followed some of the classic illustrators of children's literature, like Arthur Rackham, who created a select group of illustrations for each of his children's titles. Reading through books he illustrated is like coming across delightful little surprises throughout the story. I miss these in Mary Engelbreit's books.
So, if you're a fan, you will probably love the cover illustrations, and since the books are clean and well designed, they'll probably become a favorite version to read, that will hold up well to repeated handling. Perhaps in future editions, she will consider doing a few simple interior illustrations as well.
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