This version of The Nutcracker is based on the ballet and will serve well as a preview for anyone planning on going to a performance. The language is also fairly simple to allow younger children to understand. Jay’s version is the height of innocence without even a hint of romance between Clara and the prince and the possibly the least frightening Nutcracker battle that I’ve seen. It’s failing is simply that it’s not all that interesting or exciting. The illustration run towards folksy, with faux crackling across each page. Drosselmeyer has none of his traditional wild, crazed white-haired, becaped mystique. Instead he is a plump man with a curly mustache. Even the evil mouse scenario is lightened up by the presence of a toy mouse earlier in the evening (so the implication is that the mouse king is also simply a toy come to life). In defeat he simply crumples to the floor, no definitive death scene is present.
Recommended with Reservations: I probably wouldn’t go out of my way to purchase this copy for anyone, but if you need to grab one from the local public library it will certainly do in a pinch. I should also admit that I always felt the Nutcracker was a teensy bit scary in parts and when a book eliminates that entirely, it doesn’t entirely make sense with Tchaikovsky’s music.
Sex, Nudity, Dating – None.
Profanity – None.
Death, Violence and Gore – The mouse king and nutcracker duel with swords. The mouse army is armed with swords.
Drugs, Alcohol and Smoking – None.
Frightening or Intense Things – None.
I never knew there were so many versions of the Nutcracker. I just knew the ballet!
Love it that you reference the ballet version in your reviews of all these tales because that is what so many children see and parent and child can put the stories in that context easily.