A fresh and buoyant look at the well-known folktale. Gretchen, the mayor’s daughter, falls in love with villager Hans, brave and good-natured. But the mayor wants the best huntsman in the world for his daughter. A discouraged Hans comes upon a cloven-footed, dwarfish stranger in the forest, who promises him victory if Hans signs a contract to serve him after seven years. Hans does and Gretchen is his, for seven years seems a long time. When their eldest child is six, Hans tells Gretchen of his bargain, noting that the only escape clause is if Hans can ask the dwarf a question he cannot answer. Gretchen comes up with a solution—and it’s quite an amusing one. Soft-edged and sunny watercolors are full of winsome detail—the black-eyed Susans wound in Gretchen’s long braid, and the baleful expressions on the faces of Hans’s dog and Gretchen’s cats. The language has a nice ring to it: Hans’s mother going to see the mayor, “though doubt was heavy in her shoes” and the dwarf “chummy as if they’d eaten porridge out of the same pot.” This Gretchen’s a winner. (Picture book/folktale. 5-8)
Pub Date: Sept. 1, 2000
ISBN: 0-7614-5066-1
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Marshall Cavendish
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2000
Although the love comes shining through, the text often confuses in straining for patterned simplicity.
A collection of parental wishes for a child.
It starts out simply enough: two children run pell-mell across an open field, one holding a high-flying kite with the line “I wish you more ups than downs.” But on subsequent pages, some of the analogous concepts are confusing or ambiguous. The line “I wish you more tippy-toes than deep” accompanies a picture of a boy happily swimming in a pool. His feet are visible, but it's not clear whether he's floating in the deep end or standing in the shallow. Then there's a picture of a boy on a beach, his pockets bulging with driftwood and colorful shells, looking frustrated that his pockets won't hold the rest of his beachcombing treasures, which lie tantalizingly before him on the sand. The line reads: “I wish you more treasures than pockets.” Most children will feel the better wish would be that he had just the right amount of pockets for his treasures. Some of the wordplay, such as “more can than knot” and “more pause than fast-forward,” will tickle older readers with their accompanying, comical illustrations. The beautifully simple pictures are a sweet, kid- and parent-appealing blend of comic-strip style and fine art; the cast of children depicted is commendably multiethnic.
Although the love comes shining through, the text often confuses in straining for patterned simplicity. (Picture book. 5-8)Pub Date: April 1, 2015
ISBN: 978-1-4521-2699-9
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Chronicle Books
Review Posted Online: Feb. 15, 2015
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2015
Sloat collaborates with Huffman, a Yu’pik storyteller, to infuse a traditional “origins” tale with the joy of creating. Hearing the old women of her village grumble that they have only tasteless crowberries for the fall feast’s akutaq—described as “Eskimo ice cream,” though the recipe at the end includes mixing in shredded fish and lard—young Anana carefully fashions three dolls, then sings and dances them to life. Away they bound, to cover the hills with cranberries, blueberries, and salmonberries. Sloat dresses her smiling figures in mixes of furs and brightly patterned garb, and sends them tumbling exuberantly through grassy tundra scenes as wildlife large and small gathers to look on. Despite obtrusively inserted pronunciations for Yu’pik words in the text, young readers will be captivated by the action, and by Anana’s infectious delight. (Picture book/folktale. 6-8)
Pub Date: June 1, 2004
ISBN: 0-88240-575-6
Page Count: 32
Publisher: N/A
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 2004
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