Beauty and the Beast embody the dominant themes of this story: true beauty is found more in kindness and generosity of spirit than in appearance; appearances can be deceiving; love is less an explosion than a patient discovery of another person.

Beauty is at first overshadowed by her sisters: Jeweltongue is brilliant and witty; Lionheart is brave and outgoing. However, these traits inherited from their mother are mixed blessings. Readers can see between the lines that the girls' mother was a restless and unhappy woman. Jeweltongue has her cleverness, but she uses it to hurt people.

Lionheart has her mother's bravery, but she uses and destroys animals, just as her mother killed a young colt with her dangerous bet.

Beauty is quiet, yet she rescues Lionheart's victims and soothes those cut by Jeweltongue's sharpness. She seems to have nothing of her mother in her...