SUPPOSE YOU MET A WITCH

by Ian Serraillier ‧ RELEASE DATE: Oct. 1, 1973

Whereas Blair Lent's oni in last year's Funny Little Woman were beautifully grotesque, Emberley's witch is merely gruesome. But not pretty-pretty; Emberley couldn't be less so. His flamboyant art nouveau swirls, the sweeping curls and marble-like sea-foamy flames are gracefully spectacular, and his green, gulping witch quite lives up to Serraillier's description of Grimble-grum as ""all willow-gnarled and whiskered head to toe."" Most important, his sensuous ostentation is totally in keeping with the dramatic transformations of the Grimm-based story and the compressed, onomotopoetic extravagance of Serraillier's musical verse. The scene can change from the witch's gross candyland villa with its ""licorice-beaded door"" and ""glassy glacier-minted floor"" to the pale, almost imperceptible loveliness of two swans (really a boy and girl who have changed themselves to avoid the witch's clutches) gliding ""serene and cool"" on a ""heaven-painted pond"" to a tangled, shadowed, thorny thicket in which Grimblegrum dances to a magic flute shrieking ""tickle-me-thistle and prickle-de-dee"" while the children escape. For those who are fed up with benign cookie-baking witches, Grimblegrum ""astride her broom o' beech"" or ""galloping, gulping 'Gobble you yet, I'll gobble you yet!' "" should prove a high-powered Halloween read-aloud.

Pub Date: Oct. 1, 1973

ISBN: N/A

Page Count: -

Publisher: Little, Brown

Review Posted Online: N/A

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 1, 1973

Categories: CHILDREN'S