I almost feel as though this should be considered a Short
Review since The Sleeper and the Spindle
pretty much qualifies as a short story in length. With its illustrations, it
comes out to just under 70 pages. And honestly, it’s a concise, beautifully
rendered story that doesn’t need much said, and shouldn’t have too much said to
avoid spoilers, so forgive the brevity of this review.
As one should come to expect from Gaiman’s approach to
rehashed fairy tales, the stories of Snow White and Sleeping Beauty weave
together in both a new and familiar way, and with such seamless ease you’d
think other writers would have tried to bring them together sooner. The opening
action follows three of the seven dwarves visiting the cusp of Sleeping
Beauty’s kingdom to procure fine cloth for Snow White’s upcoming wedding. Right
away we glimpse at the devotion the dwarves have for her (if only these three—keeping
the number of dwarves low is an understandable alteration for the sake of
effective characterization) as well as understand where we are in Snow White’s
story.
