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
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
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
Rapunzel, Rapunzel, let down your dreads! Isadora once again plies her hand using colorful, textured collages to depict her fourth fairy tale relocated to Africa. The narrative follows the basic story line: Taken by an evil sorceress at birth, Rapunzel is imprisoned in a tower; Rapunzel and the prince “get married” in the tower and she gets pregnant. The sorceress cuts off Rapunzel’s hair and tricks the prince, who throws himself from the tower and is blinded by thorns. The terse ending states: “The prince led Rapunzel and their twins to his kingdom, where they were received with great joy and lived happily every after.” Facial features, clothing, dreadlocks, vultures and the prince riding a zebra convey a generic African setting, but at times, the mixture of patterns and textures obfuscates the scenes. The textile and grain characteristic of the hewn art lacks the elegant romance of Zelinksy’s Caldecott version. Not a first purchase, but useful in comparing renditions to incorporate a multicultural aspect. (Picture book/fairy tale. 6-8)
Pub Date: Oct. 1, 2008
ISBN: 978-0-399-24772-9
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Putnam
Review Posted Online: June 24, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 2008
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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