Though a bit of a patchwork with all the visual styles on display, this gathering of old favorites in their full, original...
Color and silhouette illustrations first seen in editions 50 to 150 years ago add an antique glaze to 27 stories newly translated from the Brothers Grimm’s final and, as the editor puts it, “most child-friendly” versions.
Not to say that there aren’t still plenty of violent and gruesome bits—from the ugly fates of Cinderella’s stepsisters to the decapitated horse in “Goose Girl.” With only rare exceptions, like the Brave Little Tailor, who swats flies that are “bugging him out of his mind,” the language in these unabridged versions remains classically formal, more grand than intimate and conveying in the lighter stories more wit than laugh-out-loud humor. The art samples work from 27 illustrators, nearly all of whom were European, and likewise presents a range of elaborately stylized Princes, graceful Maidens, anthropomorphic animals and comical magical creatures in, usually, court or period costume. Printed in double columns of small type, the collection is designed for adult readers to read or read aloud, and for the grown-ups Daniel also includes analytical introductions, an opening appreciation of the Grimms’ work as “the DNA of all fairy-tale scholarship,” and long biographical notes on the illustrators. As a piece of bookmaking, it harkens back to more extravagant times, with a gold-stamped, purple cloth cover, many gilt pages, elaborate display type and scrollwork and two bound-in silk ribbons to act as bookmarks.
Though a bit of a patchwork with all the visual styles on display, this gathering of old favorites in their full, original forms collected in a lovely package should please fairy-tale collectors and bibliophiles alike. (translator’s and historical notes, index) (Fairy tales. 7-11, adult)Pub Date: Oct. 1, 2011
ISBN: 978-3-8365-2672-2
Page Count: 304
Publisher: Taschen
Review Posted Online: Sept. 2, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2011
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
Though usually cast as the trickster, Coyote is more victim than victimizer, making this a nice complement to other Coyote...
Two republished tales by a Greco-Cherokee author feature both folkloric and modern elements as well as new illustrations.
One of the two has never been offered south of the (Canadian) border. In “Coyote Sings to the Moon,” the doo-wop hymn sung nightly by Old Woman and all the animals except tone-deaf Coyote isn’t enough to keep Moon from hiding out at the bottom of the lake—until she is finally driven forth by Coyote’s awful wailing. She has been trying to return to the lake ever since, but that piercing howl keeps her in the sky. In “Coyote’s New Suit” he is schooled in trickery by Raven, who convinces him to steal the pelts of all the other animals while they’re bathing, sends the bare animals to take clothes from the humans’ clothesline, and then sets the stage for a ruckus by suggesting that Coyote could make space in his overcrowded closet by having a yard sale. No violence ensues, but from then to now humans and animals have not spoken to one another. In Eggenschwiler’s monochrome scenes Coyote and the rest stand on hind legs and (when stripped bare) sport human limbs. Old Woman might be Native American; the only other completely human figure is a pale-skinned girl.
Though usually cast as the trickster, Coyote is more victim than victimizer, making this a nice complement to other Coyote tales. (Fiction. 9-11)Pub Date: Oct. 3, 2017
ISBN: 978-1-55498-833-4
Page Count: 56
Publisher: Groundwood
Review Posted Online: July 1, 2017
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 2017
Chicken sexer? Breath odor evaluator? Cryptozoologist? Island caretaker? The choices dazzle! (Informational picture book....
From funeral clown to cheese sculptor, a tally of atypical trades.
This free-wheeling survey, framed as a visit to “The Great Hall of Jobs,” is designed to shake readers loose from simplistic notions of the world of work. Labarre opens with a generic sculpture gallery of, as she puts it, “The Classics”—doctor, dancer, farmer, athlete, chef, and the like—but quickly moves on, arranging busy cartoon figures by the dozen in kaleidoscopic arrays, with pithy captions describing each occupation. As changes of pace she also tucks in occasional challenges to match select workers (Las Vegas wedding minister, “ethical” hacker, motion-capture actor) with their distinctive tools or outfits. The actual chances of becoming, say, the queen’s warden of the swans or a professional mattress jumper, not to mention the nitty-gritty of physical or academic qualifications, income levels, and career paths, are left largely unspecified…but along with noting that new jobs are being invented all the time (as, in the illustration, museum workers wheel in a “vlogger” statue), the author closes with the perennial insight that it’s essential to love what you do and the millennial one that there’s nothing wrong with repeatedly switching horses midstream. The many adult figures and the gaggle of children (one in a wheelchair) visiting the “Hall” are diverse of feature, sex, and skin color.
Chicken sexer? Breath odor evaluator? Cryptozoologist? Island caretaker? The choices dazzle! (Informational picture book. 7-9)Pub Date: April 14, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-5362-1219-8
Page Count: 48
Publisher: Nosy Crow
Review Posted Online: Nov. 23, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 15, 2019
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