A foolish father, hoping to impress the king, tells the king that his daughter can spin straw into gold. The greedy king orders the girl to come to the castle and demonstrate her talent -warning her that if she doesn't produce gold, she will be killed. During the night, an elfin man named Rumpelstiltskin enters the room and, miraculously, spins the straw into gold. The miller's daughter is saved, and married to the prince, but Rumpelstiltskin has extracted a promise: the new queen must give him her first child unless she can guess his highly unusual name. A Caldecott Honor book.