THE HEADLESS HORSEMAN
by Washington Irving & adapted by Tim Chadwick & illustrated by Emma Harding
Greatly shortened and simplified, this is a well-told version, but the illustrations wrench it from its Hudson River valley origins and deposit it in a stylized nightmare world. Featureless interiors and steep, bare hills punctuated by a few columnar trees serve for backgrounds. Brom is dressed in boots, spurs, and Stetson; Ichabod is not a comically hapless caricature but a true grotesque; and Katrina is depicted as a gluttonous, spiritless jade. An Ichabod-like scarecrow appears on the title page and again at the end—a nice touch. Irving's yarn is only nominally a supernatural tale; by mistaking it for a ghost story, Harding forfeits all its sly humor and hazy, Indian-summer charm. (Picture book. 8-12)