This nutcracker the girl's name is Clara which is what I was looking for.

A childhood favorite. I would absolutely pore over the brightly detailed illustrations.

Good to read as explanation for what goes on in the ballet. Good for children.

This has been a lifetime favorite book. Having been fortunate enough to see the NYC ballet in Lincoln Center many years in a row when I was child. This is a book that brings your right back to the moment you see the tree rise from the floor with the beautiful blue lights! Truly magical! Fantastic illustrations

Not my favorite translation of the Nutcracker (for the words or pictures), but Vagin is a favorite illustrator of mine, so it was great to see what he did with the work. As always, his use of color brings the story to vivid life, and his version of the Sugarplum Fairy is unique - not just colored similar to, but actually draped in sugarplums. I would've preferred a more poetic narrative that could have really captured the magic of the tale, but this is certainly one of the better adaptations based on the illustrations alone.

As the name suggests, this adaptation of the nutcracker follows the ballet rather than the original story. The text is not really anything special, but I loved the intricacies of Vagin's illustrations.