Puss in Boots
6 min read ages 4 and up
French tales
11 tales
Beauty and the Beast
16 min read ages 6 and up
Bluebeard
10 min read ages 8 and up
Ali Baba and the Forty Thieves
15 min read ages 8 and up
Sinbad the Sailor
11 min read ages 7 and up
Donkey Skin
12 min read ages 6 and up
The White Cat
15 min read ages 6 and up
Aladdin and the Wonderful Lamp
15 min read ages 7 and up
Toads and Diamonds
5 min read ages 5 and up
Hop-o’-My-Thumb
12 min read ages 6 and up
The Fisherman and the Jinni
10 min read ages 6 and up
Perrault, Beaumont and Galland
Charles Perrault published Histoires ou contes du temps passé in Paris in 1697, and Puss in Boots, Bluebeard and Hop-o’-My-Thumb all come from it. Donkey Skin is his as well, and so is Toads and Diamonds, which is short enough for a bedtime.
Beauty and the Beast is the work of Jeanne-Marie Leprince de Beaumont, a Frenchwoman who spent years in London as a governess. She published it there in 1756, in her Magasin des enfants, so this French tale first came out in London rather than in Paris.
Antoine Galland translated The Thousand and One Nights into French and published it in Paris between 1704 and 1717. Ali Baba and the Forty Thieves and Sinbad the Sailor are both in his edition, so they appear here alongside The Fisherman and the Jinni.
Younger children usually start with Puss in Boots, a cat who talks his way into a fortune for his master. Bluebeard and its locked room are better left for older ones. Every one of them is free, retold in modern English from texts in the public domain.