Product Description In order to marry the beautiful princess that he loves, a Persian prince must outwit an evil magician and use the magic horse to his advantage. From Publishers Weekly Scott has adapted this story from Sir Richard Burton's The Arabian Nights with startling authenticity and splendid detail. A wizard presents a king with an ebony horse, inlaid with jewels, for which the price is the king's daughter's hand in marriage. Both the king and his daughter refuse; the wizard puts the king's sonthe Princeon the horse, which flies away with him. The Prince lands the horse on a rooftop by moonlight and enters the room of a sleeping Princess. He loves her on sight, and when she awakens, she loves him too. But they are separated by the wizard, who offers the Princess to a wealthy Sultan. The Prince, of course, saves her, and from behind a shroud of incense they rise up, on the horse, and fly home. The horse is broken up into a thousand pieces. Scott's paintings shimmer with jewel-like intensity. Her text is fluid, each word in place; a more enchanting adaptation of this story is hard to imagine. Copyright 1986 Reed Business Information, Inc. From School Library Journal Kindergarten-Grade 3 Extensive pruning has left the outlines of this romantic tale from The Arabian Nights in clear and satisfying shape. Riding the flying ebony horse, the Prince meets his true love and then rescues her from the designs of the evil creator of the horse and from a rival Sultan, but the practical wit of both lovers is also instrumental. The stylized illustrations allude to Persian miniatures and indulge in a riotous proliferation of dazzling geometric patterns. The most attractive features, a rich indigo blue and the curveting horse, are combined appealingly on the jacket. One quibble: the wicked magician is nowhere near as repulsive looking as he should be. Patricia Dooley, formerly at Drexel University, PhiladelphiaCopyright 1986 Reed Business Information, Inc.