PLB 0-06-027967-2 In this diminished version of a familiar tale from the Grimms, Andreasen omits Snow White, focusing instead on a braver and more clever Rose Red. Rose Red has no fear when a burly bear comes knocking on her cottage door one winter’s night. She ushers the bear to the fire and brushes his coat free of snow. Rose Red and the bear become friends throughout the winter, but when there is a thaw, the bear tells her that he must go retrieve his treasure, stolen by a wicked dwarf. Wandering the forest one day, Rose Red comes upon that very same dwarf, his beard caught in a tree. She saves the little man but demands a portion of the bear’s treasure. Three times she comes upon the cantankerous dwarf in desperate straits and each time she assists him, eventually regaining the bear’s entire fortune, releasing him from the evil spell that had robbed him of his princehood. Although the heroine is nobody’s fool, she predictably marries royalty; there are no deaths, making this version even more benign. Andreasen’s elegant artwork, done in powdery hues, is nicely detailed, with every illustration framed in shimmering gold. (Picture book. 5-9)
Pub Date: Feb. 29, 2000
ISBN: 0-06-027966-4
Page Count: 40
Publisher: HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 15, 1999
Mama God, Papa God ($15.95; Apr. 26; 32 pp.; 1-56656-307-0): The creation story takes a whimsical Caribbean turn in a seamless blend of religion and folk-art set in Haiti. Tired of living in darkness, Papa God creates light, then goes on to make the world as a beautiful gift for Mama God. Together, they design a detailed world filled with brilliance, love, and humor. Highly stylized illustrations rich in primary colors show the progress of creation as animals, birds, water, fish, wind, and rain take their place in the world. This unusual rendition of the creation tale sings to a calypso beat and gives a strikingly different and exuberant interpretation of how the world began. (Picture book. 3-8)
Pub Date: April 26, 1999
ISBN: 1-56656-307-0
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Interlink
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 1999
A beguiling retelling of a 19th-century Lincolnshire tale that fairly dances with an impatience to be read aloud. Mouth-filling words dot this story, the context making them easily understood while taking away none of their mystery. Bogles and other horrid things live in the cracks and cinders and sleep in the fields in the old times, and at darkling every night folk walk round their houses with lights in their hands to keep the mischancy beings away. In autumn, “they sang hush-a-bye songs in the fields, for the earth was tired” and they fear the winters when the bogles have nothing to do but make mischief. As the year turns, they wake the earth from its sleeping each spring, and welcome the green mist that brings new growth. In one family, a child pines, longing for the green mist to return with the sun. Through the long winter she grows so weak her mother must carry her to the doorsill, so she can crumble the bread and salt onto the earth to hail the spring. The green mist comes, scented with herbs and green as grass, and the child thrives, once again “running about like a sunbeam.” The green, gold, brown, and gray of the watercolors show fields and haycocks, knobby-kneed children and raw-boned elders, a counterpoint to the rich text. (Picture book. 4-9)
Pub Date: March 1, 1999
ISBN: 0-395-90013-1
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Houghton Mifflin
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 1999
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