Chatrapati posted:

I'd like to get my niece a fairytale book; I used to have a few British and Scandinavian ones growing up, and she likes it when I tell her the really gruesome ones. Recently she saved up her pocket money to buy her own book and was a bit disappointed that the stories weren't as macabre as the ones I (kind of) remember, which was sad. Also, I can hardly remember them at all and have ran out of stories.

A couple of tales which I remember her liking were a story where a farmer forgets to leave milk out for a local troll and ultimately gets his skin peeled off in the bathhouse, and one where a guy gets tricked by some fairies to become their slave and dance until his legs break. I believe that she likes the tension up to these terrible events, as one realises that everything is going to go badly.

She does own a copy of Arabian Nights, but it was my grandmother's copy from the early 1900s and the language is super inaccessible (nevermind racist) for a 9 year old, so ideally I would like something she can read at her own leisure.