Usborne Books have published a series of books – Peep Inside a Fairy Tale. These books tell the story of famous fairy tales, like The Nutcracker, simply for young children. They are all beautifully illustrated. As they are peep inside books there are little windows throughout the book where you can see through onto other pages, giving hints of what is on the next page, They use doorways, or snowflakes, or little mouse holes to give these little hints of what is on different pages.
The Nutcracker is the story of two children Fritz and Clara playing with their new Christmas presents under the Christmas Tree. Clara’s favourite toy is the Nutcracker, who could crack real nuts with his teeth. She carries on playing with her Nutcracker toy late into the night, and at the stroke of midnight she shrinks to the size of a doll, meets the Nutcracker and they have a series of adventures together.
The Nutcracker has been told countless times, and when I was a child I remember going to see Tchaikovsky’s ballet of The Nutcracker at the Birmingham Hippodrome, and watching it in the Disney film Fantastia. In my memory (though a child’s memory can be fallible) the Nutcracker ballet was on in the theatre every year. It was a feature of every Christmas, much like The Wizard of Oz, or Sound of Music being on every Easter.
This is a really nice version of the story. As mentioned above it is simply written for younger readers, the illustrations are great and tell the story as much as the prose. It is a lift the flap book as well, which again is always a hit with younger children, something that they can do for themselves, and something they can discover for themselves. It is a great introduction to the story, lovely to read at Christmas – or year round frankly; my children seem to like Christmas stories best in May or June!! – and when we are able to go back to the theatre together, this would be a very good introduction for children before they go to see the ballet for the first time.
getkidsintomusic.com 
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