The Singing Ringing Tree

by Selina Shirley Hastings

A prince seeks the Singing Ringing Tree to please a vain and selfish princess so she will marry him, but the quest is dangerous and results in great misery for both before true love puts everything to rights.

Genres: Picture Books, Fairy Tales

32 pages, Paperback

First published October 1, 1988

About the author

Lady Selina Shirley Hastings is a British journalist, author and biographer.

Reviews

[Tym · Rating 4 out of 5]

The story is a beautiful traditional fairy tale that isn’t as common as say your Snow White or Cinderella but still of the same tradition. The art was interesting and it took a few pages to grow on me but I enjoyed it in the end.

[Madison Carter · Rating 3 out of 5]

Genre: Traditional Literature
Grade Level: 1-2

The story here is very interesting. I liked the writing too, but the illustrations were like a let down to me. I did not connect with the illustrations, and they brought the book down for me.

[Ape Bleakney · Rating 4 out of 5]

Received as a Christmas gift - had this book as a child and remembered it most from its subdued and slightly surrealistic art (unlike most other children's books). Really a tale about vanity and ungratefulness. A bit of an intro about the folk origins of the fairy tale which was a great addition.

[Molly Cluff (Library!) · Rating 4 out of 5]

I'd never heard this story, but I really like the backbone of it. A prince seeks a magic tree to impress a princess, but when she doesn't agree to marry him as promised, a curse is placed on both of them by the dwarf who gave them the magic tree. The book itself was pretty old so the illustration style wasn't my favorite, but I liked the story flow. I liked how the princess finally changes to be a better person when she was so snotty at the beginning. Who knows why the prince kept trying when she was so rude to him, though! He should have moved on, haha. I might try to adapt this for a podcast episode.

[Stephanie · Rating 2 out of 5]

Short, so that was good.