Customer Reviews

The Legend of Sleepy Hollow

5 star:		(86)
4 star:		(44)
3 star:		(23)
2 star:		(8)
1 star:		(8)

 

 

I grabbed this for the Kindle since it was free, and like the previous reviewer, I only had a vague idea of the story from various cartoon versions.

I was very pleasantly surprised. I've not read anything else by Washington Irving. The story is simple; the prose is easy to read but in spots is downright beautiful. Some of the scenic descriptions border on poetry. Irving writes with a dry sense of humor; and he has faith in the reader's ability to connect the dots, so he doesn't spell everything out.

It's a short read - in print I guess it would be 30 to 40 pages. One GREAT thing about reading it on Kindle is having the dictionary function, as there were a number of archaic terms with which I was not familiar.

I give it 5 stars for the combination of price and quality of writing. If you'd like some good writing, a peek into America (upstate New York) at the end of the 18th century, and a little wit, go ahead and grab it - especially if it's free!

How would you feel if every time you walked outside in the dark, you felt a chill? What if you lived in a town that everyone said was haunted? How would you like it if you were running for your life from a headless horseman? Well that's what the schoolmaster, Ichabod Crane does in The Legend of Sleepy Hollow by Washington Irving.

To begin with this book will keep you on the edge better than any other book. When Ichabod is alone in the woods at night and starts hearing noises you have no idea what's going to happen to him. From experience my heart was pumping faster than it ever had before while I was reading a book.

Another good reason to read this book is it will hook you in from the very beginning. It was so good that I was anxious to turn the next page and see what was going to happen. I liked the book so much that I finished the it the same day I started it!

The next reason is it can be scary. When Ichobod is in panic as he rides his horse down the road because he is being chased by the headless horseman you don't know if Ichabod will live or die. Even though it may not be that scary in the beginning it gets a lot scarier later on. Besides the book being scary it is also a love story. Ichabod is deeply in love with the beautiful Miss Katrina Van Tassle but unfortunately so is Brom Bones. He is a rough, bold, and strong man that would do anything to get what he wants. In the book he trashes Ichabod's schoolhouse because he caught him talking to Katrina. That still doesn't stop Ichabod from trying to get the one he believes is his one true love.

Out of all the books that I have ever read The Legend of Sleepy Hollow has hooked me in faster than any other. If you like scary/mystery books this would be the book for you. Although it is a cool book I recommend it to kids 8 years of age and older because of the scary and suspenseful moments the book has in it. So next time you are at the library and want a good book, get The Legend of Sleepy Hollow. Then you can get chills in the dark, too!

Washington Irving had a way with words that none could compare with. His simple and not very scarry at all tale of one of the most famous "ghosts" in history is both delightful in it's humor and wit and charming in it's character description. If you are looking for something to send shivers up your spine and make you quake in fear, you have looked to the wrong story master. Irving was a story teller of everyday people in everyday situations. The comical and the endearing. He made his observations on life and living it and left the afterlife to speculation. That is why "The Legend of Sleepy Hollow" is a true literary classic!

This version of Irving's tale is designed for younger children. The illustrations are lovely--not scary at all. I do think, however, that the text is a little long for a 4 year old to sit through, especially since some of the vocabulary and sentence structure is a bit advanced. I'd say this was appropriate for 6 and up.

Have you ever heard of the Headless Horseman? Have you ever heard the stories about him and how he attacks people in the woods? Have you ever wondered whether or not the story is real?

Find out for yourself by reading Washington Irving's The Legend of Sleepy Hollow. I enjoyed reading this book and i think anyone who has a liking for mysterious legends and superstitions should read this book beacause of the interesting legend the town believes in. There are few characters to keep track of and the story is not hard to follow. The book is long but the reading goes quickly.

The story is set in the late 18th century in a town in New York called Sleepy Hollow. The town believes in a legend of a headless horseman who rides through the woods at night anf attacks people. The main character is a man named Ichabod Crane who is a schoolteacher from Connecticut. He moves to Sleepy Hollow in search of work and ends up going from home to home working as a tutor. One of his students is 18 year old Katrina Van Tassel who comes from a wealthy family. Ichabod gets the idea that he will try to marry Katrina in order to obtain the family's wealth. However, Katrina's boyrfriend Abraham "Brom Bones" Brut has other plans for Ichabod. As the tension rises, Ichabod continues trying to win Katrina until a breathtaking surprise appearance by the town's legend creates as mysterious an ending as they come.

The book has many strengths and few weaknesses. The author manages to create a mood in the book that keeps you always on th edge of your seat waiting for the legend of the Headless Horseman to come into play. The story is simple and easy to follow but is still very interesting. The characters are developed well and have personalities that you can understand and relate to. One such character is Brom Bones who is easily seen as an arrogant egotist. The only weakness of the book was one based on my personal opinion. The end of the story leaves too much to be concluded for my liking.

All in all, this book was a great story. The author wrote the characters in such a way that you had definite feelings towards each one of them. Also, the story line was definitely not without surprise. But if you want to discover what surprises I am talking about then I suggest you read The Legend of Sleepy Hollow.

Like Rip Van Winkle, this tale is set in Dutch New York State in a real place called Tarry Town. The colonists farm and gossip, play tricks, have ambitions and court young ladies--in an area steeped in macabre superstition. Ichabod crane, a lanky and susceptible schoolmaster from Connecticut, vies with local hothead, Brom Bones, for the affection (and lush estates) of desirable Katrina Van Tassel.

But the sleepy region's ghostly lore and grisly legends are used for more than mere fireside entertainment. Will we ever know the truth of the shattered pumpkin by the bridge? Each one must fill in the fate of the ambitious pedagogue as seems best, for Washington Irving leaves it to the reader to decide.

Once the US ambassador to Spain, Irving traveled widely and collected the folklore of the countries he visited nearly 150 years ago. "Yet his characters are as fresh and vital today as when they first appeared in print." One edition of his stories includes: Rip Van Wwinkle, the Legend of Sleepy Hollow, plus two lesser-known works: The Spectre Bridegroom (set in Germany) and The Moor's Legacy (set in Spain's Alhambra). Few authors can match his rich vocabulary and detailed narrative. Our American literary and folkloric heritage are indebted to Irving's style and imagination. What were Halloween without the Headless Horseman hounding poor Ichabod Crane through the spooky woods?

I read "The Legend of Sleepy Hollow" to test out my new Kindle. It is extremely short and has a plot that has been adapted so many times that I really wasn't expecting what I got out of the real thing. Irving's writing was witty and beautifully descriptive. Its vocabulary was also often surprisingly advanced for such a short book. However, if a person goes into this book looking for a spooky tale of terror, this is not the place to look. Most of the actual book is build-up and description. Rather than being the scary story that people come to expect due to the many film adaptations, it seems to be more of an example showing how people can get carried away with superstitions as well as what deeds people can perform when consumed by jealousy. Irving's hints that Brom's jealousy prompted him to perform the elaborate hoax in which Ichabod's fears of The Headless Horseman are realized seemed farely obvious to me.

Will Moses' illustrated retelling of Washington Irving's The Legend of Sleepy Hollow rivals Arthur Rackham's near century-old version as the best edition of the book ever published. The Rackham version, with its moody, archetypal illustrations, has the slight edge, as it contains Irving's full original text in addition to Rackham's spectacular artwork.

However, Moses's simplification of the narrative is masterfully executed, and the colorful, playful, and numerous paintings which adorn the book have a warm period charm of genuine Americana. Moses portrays the Hudson River Valley as a lush expansive valley not unlike the Garden of Eden on the first day of creation. Happy farmers, their wives and children, cows, geese, ducks and pigs frolic together amid fields of wheat and corn; galleons approach dramatically from the river; and the Catskill Mountains, sun, and sky suggested an infinite panorama and endless horizon full of promise.

The story tells us that the Dutch colonists were a superstitious lot, and that the Sleepy Hollow region itself was or seemed to be under a spell of some kind. The farmers and their wives suspected witchcraft; strange music was heard in the air; visions were seen; and the inhabitants themselves lived their lives in a kind of continuous dreamy revery. These tales and superstitions give rise to the legend of the headless horseman, said to be the ghost of a Hessian soldier who lost his head to a canon ball in the war, and now nightly prowling the region in search of it. Moses' nocturnal landscapes of the swamps, hills and the Old Dutch Cemetery under a bright harvest moon are particularly effective. Significantly, these stark, haunted landscapes do not violate the spirit of the book, but enrich its sense of wonder.

Moses' Ichabod is a cheerful but somewhat hapless fellow, confident and foolish in equal parts. His Katrina is a strong but innocent blond beauty, and a friend to children. Brom Bones is an appropriately square-shouldered, square-jawed hooligan, rowdy and full of mischief, if not absolute spite.

Anyone familiar with the tale knows that it is not a horror story but a folktale, a fireside spook story, and a `legend' as Irving, writing here as Diedrich Knickerbocker, himself called it. This edition of the book is appropriate for children but is equally suitable for adults. Highly recommended.

The original 1928 Arthur Rackham edition of Washington Irving's The Legend of Sleepy Hollow (first published in 1819) was one of the most beautifully illustrated versions of the tale ever produced. This Books Of Wonder facsimile of that edition is certainly the finest available today, though folk artist Will Moses' bright retelling runs a close second. Rackham's watercolors for this American classic are very much in keeping with his earlier work, which had established him as the greatest British illustrator of his era.

Where much of Irving's tale is painted in the warm autumn hues, Rackham choose to portray Sleep Hollow as not only a place of overwhelming haunts and visions, but as a region existing in a state of permanent, moody twilight. His Sleep Hollow seems perpetually in crepuscular shadow: the last pure rays of the sun have just vanished from the earth, and darkness, though it has not fallen yet, is falling quickly. In the artist's eye, Irving's fireside tale appears to take place not in glorious mid-October, but in storm-swept late November. The illustrator's anthropomorphic and archetypal Sleepy Hollow also magnifies elements of Irving's romantic landscape over and above the necessities of the text. While witches, ghosts, and visions are discussed in the story, Rackham depicts the trees, houses, and countryside of the region as teeming with every kind of fairy, goblin, dryad, and witch, as if calmly revealing to the eyes of man the always coexistent if invisible supernatural life of the Hudson River Valley. His painting of Major Andre's Tree, for example, depicts a traditional European fairytale witch and her black cat familiar walking along the road beneath Andre's tree as if they had every right to be there. It is mankind that is the anxious, insecure, and mortally temporary interloper into this vaster mystical world. Rackham's trees are trees but also fairies, his fairies are fairies but also witches, his witches are human in form but also trees, and the birds resting in the trees, while birds, are sometimes partially fairies. All of these creatures confidently, humorously, and mischievously observe mankind, which, when not perpetually scurrying home to safety, gathers together in nervous groups to share tidings, portents, and spook tales.

Irving's remarkably poetic and nuanced prose is in every way worthy of the man who bears the honor of being America's first great writer. Interestingly, the tale is partially a study in contrasts: schoolteacher Ichabod Crane and his rival, the rabble - rousing Brom Bones, though obvious opposites, each also contain elements of the other. Ichabod, though he lives largely in his thoughts and dreams, has a very definite physical side: he plays boisterously outdoors with the town children, and, at the fatal party at the story's end, commands the dance floor in a way that delights and astonishes the other guests. And Brom, who is a great horseman and a fearless fighter, is also known throughout the region for his cleverness in shrewdly achieving his own ends. Ichabod is an ugly, eccentric "scarecrow" of a man, while Brom is "broad - shouldered and double - jointed," with a "Herculean frame and great powers of limb." Brom, unlike the ultimately solitary Ichabod, is a well - established alpha male with "three or four boon companions who regard him as their model," and who comprise his "gang." On the other hand, Ichabod, when not surrounded by his boy students, spends his time gossiping and sharing ghost stories around midnight fires with elderly Dutch women. Ichabod and Brom both court the lovely Katrina Van Tassel in their own fashion, not only because she is a model of feminine beauty and charm, but because each covets her family's wealth and bountiful farmland.

It's no accident that the "dominant" specter of Sleepy Hollow, who is "commander - in - chief of all the powers of the air," is a headless horseman, while Ichabod is a respected teacher and storyteller, a "man of letters" and a "pedagogue." The fearsome, massively - built Headless Horseman, who may or may not be Brom in disguise, is all torso and limbs, while Ichabod is one of the few, if not the only, inhabitant of the hollow who earns his living by his intellect - by his head. Thus they make symbolically perfect, if unequal, opponents. With his real or illusory ties to the supernatural, the headless horseman, who is believed to ride the wind and to appear and disappear in bursts of fire, is a malevolent force of nature. If of supernatural origin, then he does indeed command "the nightmare, with her whole ninefold," and all the other spirits of the air; but if merely human, then he still commands Brom's raw, "Herculean" power, and is physically far more than a match for Ichabod. Clearly, Irving was making a statement of sorts. Brom's earthy cleverness and steely masculinity triumph in the end, while Ichabod's misapplied intelligence, more often than not, leads him towards, and not away from, superstition, anxiety, and hysteria - ridden imagining. Brom's quiet confidence in his prowess is genuine, but the talkative Ichabod's confidence is only a smug self - deception out of which his boastfulness and foolish behavior are born.

This edition is a happy marriage of two masters of their form, and contains the unabridged text. Travelers may be particularly interested in the Rackham watercolor captioned "Reciting for their amusement all the epitaphs on the tombstones," which portrays Ichabod and three Dutch maidens standing in the Old Dutch Churchyard on an overcast afternoon. The illustration is remarkable, because, 75 years after it was completed, those visiting the churchyard today, which is now a national landmark, can stand in exactly the same spot and see how incredibly accurate the artist's representation of the burial ground was, and how little the beautiful site has changed, in mood and detail, over the years. As Irving wrote, "Time, which changes all things, is slow in its operations on a Dutchman's dwelling." And thereabouts.

You ever get that feeling where a book comes out and your immediate reaction is, "WELL, IT'S ABOUT BLOODY TIME!"? I tend to get this feeling only about books that it never would have occurred to me to hope for. A kid-friendly version of "Sleepy Hollow"? It seems self-evident when you say it like that, but I don't prowl the stacks of my library looking for classics to freshen up. I leave that sort of thing to the professionals. Professionals going by pseudonyms like, "Gris Grimly" and the like. What we have here in our possession is a tidy little item with a certain panache and flair. Faithful to the original text (albeit with judicious cutting and abridgement here and there) Grimly brings Irving's story to macabre life right before our eyes. Any book that has the wherewithal to introduce a classic tale to kids in a manner that they will not only understand but also seek out voluntarily should be considered in full. In Mr. Grimly we've real kid-sensibilities alongside some good old-fashioned storytelling horrors. Mr. Irving would be so pleased.

At the risk of sounding trite, you all know the story of "Sleepy Hollow" do you not? No, not the Tim Burton movie, sillies. This is the tale of the schoolteacher Ichabod Crane who, in spite of his innate goofiness and gall, was apparently the most desirable schoolteacher this side of the Mississippi. Sure, he looked like a "scarecrow eloped from a cornfield," but in a town as small as Sleepy Hollow, any fellow with even a scant bit of intellectualism about him is worth checking out. But Ichabod doesn't set his sights on just anyone. Oh no. He's impressed with only the richest girl in the county, Katrina Van Tassel. Unfortunately for him, she is currently being wooed by the local county swain Brom Van Brunt a.k.a. Brom Bones. Ichabod is keen for the challenge however, and after being invited to a dance at the Van Tassel manor it looks as if all his hopes and dreams might come true. After a possible rejection, however, the naturally superstitious teacher finds himself going home, alone, from the party. It is then that he runs across the notorious supernatural figure that all the county discusses: The Headless Horseman. Whether the horseman truly does spirit away the teacher or whether Ichabod merely flees Sleepy Hollow for good is not known. What people do know, though, is that all that remains is his hat and a shattered pumpkin along the side of a brook.

As a kid, I was always mildly baffled that Ichabod was not supposed to be the hero of his own story. If you've watched the Disney version of the tale (and I'll get to that later) then Brom Bones comes off as a bit of a jerk. This feeling isn't alleviated any by Grimly's adaptation, but it makes for an interesting change of pace from those other tales of rivals in love. In terms of the story itself, there is much here that a kid will incline towards. It's rare to find a title for kids where the protagonist is A) human and B) and adult. Nigh unto impossible, almost. Still, Ichabod with all his flaws and greed is a quintessentially American figure. I'm a little shocked no one's ever updated him into a contemporary book or movie. Talk about ripe pickings.

Some will write off the book as just another graphic novel, which is not entirely unwarranted, but also not entirely fair. I mean, what is it about this book that strikes you as comic booky? There aren't any word balloons or snatches of dialogue. There are panels, however, and often they will display action sequences in a linear fashion. Just the same, I think that it's safe to say that this book falls squarely into the category of "indefinable entity". It's maybe best described merely as an "illustrated novel", and nothing more.

But really, the art is what makes it more than just a visual adaptation. On examining this book closer I found that often the lines on a character's mouth would often extend far beyond the limits of their own face. If Ichabod smiles, for example, them the line of his smile carries on long after the flesh has ceased. At first I mistook this for some kind of moustache or facial hair, but then I found that everyone (except possibly Katrina) suffers the same technique. It's interesting to consider. Does it indicate an extreme emotion or does it merely give one character or another a bit of visual pizzazz? Gris Grimly isn't known for his sexy females (though Bella of the book "Boris and Bella comes close) so it's interesting to see him work his magic on the character of Katrina. She's all delicately lowered eyelids and curves. Grimly's style in this book is restrained, it seems, and it plumbs the inner recesses of the "Sleepy Hollow" tale for all the humor it's worth. It's not a bad idea, really. When Ichabod cuts a rug you've never seen a more ridiculous sight. For finding the funny in both the implied and the obvious, Grimly pairs nicely with Irving's fabulous text.

Let's admit something together right now. A certain strain of American has probably seen the Disney version of the Legend of Sleepy Hollow at least once in their lives. As such, certain images and phrases from this book have a hard time separating themselves from that oddly faithful (just our luck) adaptation of the tale. Certain sentences in this book float through our mental ears to the sonorous tones of Bing Crosby. For the most part, Grimly does what he can to separate himself from Disney's version, and as far as I can tell he only comes close to a direct reference once. That would be the moment where, in the midst of trying to escape the headless horseman, Ichabod briefly finds himself doing the running with his horse sitting on his back. Classic slapstick stuff, sure. Maybe too classic

Flaw: I read a few pages of this book then proceeded to stare at the cover intently for a good fifteen to thirty seconds sans blinking. I did this because I was convinced that the word "Abridged" was lurking somewhere in plain sight and I was just too thick to see it. Bemused by my inability to find it, I flipped to the title page. Nothing. The back bookflap? Nada. The front bookflap. Nothing a thi . . . . wait! Wait wait, I spoke too soon! What's that teensy tiny itty bitty l'il nuthin' of a sentence down there? That little snippet lurking beneath the description of the story? (removes magnifying glass from purse and peers closely) Ah. I see now. It says, "Be forewarned: The text has been slightly condensed for maximum fright." Knowing, as we do, the frequency with which such bookflaps get lost, perhaps the book beneath the jacket says the same thing. Yeah, no such luck. So basically, you're going to get a lot of confused parents who don't know their Washington Irving very well and will be more than happy to think that this is the complete story. Or, more likely, you'll end up with a lot of fast-moving teenagers who have been told to read the tale for their autumnal English class and can't see why this book isn't the original story since even the publication page is absent of any warnings or notations. BAD, Atheneum, BAD! You did a killer job on the bookjacket (I'm loving the faux binding peering out along the spine and the buckled "leather") but when your author abridges something you need to let us know with big flashy lights. Seriously, now.

I anticipate so many kids falling under the thrall of this book that their parents seek out Irving's original tale just to slake their headless horseman thirst for more. And anything that gets the kiddies reading real honest-to-goodness Washington Irving will have to be seen, even by the most jaded critics, as a good thing. Putting aside the question of whether or not the book should have been more forthcoming in the whole "is it abridged?" area of affairs, this is a great title and one that deserves a place in every library far and wide. Classy and keen. A keeper, if ever there was one.