Little Lit: Folklore and Fairy Tale Funnies [Hardcover]

Art Spiegelman (Editor), Francoise Mouly (Editor)

Book Description

Publication Date: October 31, 2000

A treasure and a treasury!

Innovative cartoonist and renowned children's book artists from around the world have gathered to bring you the magic of fairy tales through the wonder of comics. The stories range from old favorites to new discoveries, from the profound to the silly. A treat for all ages, these picture stories unlock the enchanted door into the pleasures of books and reading!

Best Children's Books 2000 (PW)

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

These days, most comics really aren't for kids. But Little Lit fixes that with funny and fractured all-ages fairy tales by some of the best comic artists around. Annoying magic pumpkins, a horrible ogre queen, and strangely hungry horses are just some of the strange characters guaranteed to delight both children and adults.

Twelve great tales, some new and some retold classics, with weird and wacky pictures fill the pages of Little Lit. Comic fans will recognize the talents of Dan Clowes, Kaz, Joost Swarte, and many more. Kids will love the unexpected twists on old favorites, like the lions who populate Barbara McClintock's "The Princess and the Pea." Like all good fairy tales, many of these stories have lessons hidden in them. Maus creator Art Spiegelman tells the story of a young prince who finds out he doesn't have to change the thing he likes best about himself in "Prince Rooster." And Harry Bliss's "The Baker's Daughter" finds out the hard way that she shouldn't be stingy.

Walt Kelly's 1943 "The Gingerbread Man" gives today's kids a taste of the comic books of yesteryear. There are even activities, like Charles Burns's "Spookyland" and Bruce McCall's silly "What's Wrong with this Picture?" But the very best part of the whole wonderful package is the hilarious game included on the endpapers. It's called "Fairy Tale Road Rage," and it's beautifully illustrated with the exquisite, nostalgic art of Chris Ware (Jimmy Corrigan). Players race to complete a silly story. Bedtime was never better! (All ages) --Therese Littleton

From School Library Journal

Kindergarten-Grade 6-This is a cool book: cool in the sense that it is presented by 18 renowned cartoonists; cool in the McLuhan sense of comics as a medium that commands audience involvement through iconic forms; and cool in the sense of a marriage of form and content that is brilliant in concept. Cartoonists include Spiegelman, Walt Kelly, David Macaulay, William Joyce, and Kaz. Each uses a unique style of sequential art to interpret a fairy tale, either an original story using traditional motifs (Spiegelman's "Prince Rooster") or a familiar tale. Macaulay offers a version of "Jack and the Beanstalk" and there is a fractured tale (Joyce's "Humpty [Dumpty] Trouble"). Some of the retellings like Daniel Clowes's sequel to "Sleeping Beauty" are told in formal language, others like Barbara McClintock's "The Princess and the Pea" are tongue-in-cheek. Comics and folktales have much in common. Both depend on our understanding of universal symbols and icons (think of the "smiley face") that are stripped down to amplify their meaning. Both are interactive forms that depend on the audience to fill in the details with their own imaginations. Chris Ware's "Fairy Tale Road Rage" game on the endpapers will acquaint children with the motifs and patterns of traditional tales. Librarians will hate it because processing will conceal part of the game and the punch-out game pieces will disappear. Nonetheless, the book will still circulate. This is a sensational introduction to traditional literature for a visually sophisticated generation. It will live happily ever after in the hands of readers everywhere.
Kate McClelland, Perrot Memorial Library, Old Greenwich, CT
Copyright 2000 Reed Business Information, Inc.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Hardcover: 64 pages
• Publisher: RAW Junior / Joanna Cotler; First Edition edition (October 31, 2000)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0060286245
• ISBN-13: 978-0060286248
• Product Dimensions: 13.2 x 9.4 x 0.5 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.7 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (7 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #960,508 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Discover books, learn about writers, read author blogs, and more.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

43 of 43 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Delightful, colorful fairy tales in comic book form, October 2, 2000

By 

John DiBello (Brooklyn, NY) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Little Lit: Folklore and Fairy Tale Funnies (Hardcover)

I'm a long-time fan of comic books, but I'm 38...where are the new, young readers of stories in the comic book form going to come from? There's little that's geared specifically at kids in the modern American market: most comes from Europe, like the Asterix and Tintin books. The joy of such books is their universality: they don't have to be 'written down' for kids, they can appeal to adults as well as children ("Harry Potter", anyone?). Leave it to Art Spiegelman (the acclaimed "Maus") to edit an oversized collection of 'folklore and fairy tale funnies" that will delight and amuse kids and intrigue the adults as well! There's a wide range of contemporary alternative comic book artists (Charles Burns, Kaz, Joost Swarte, Daniel Clowes, Art Spiegelman) and children's book illustrators (William Joyce, J. Otto Seibold, David Macaulay, Claude Ponti), an elaborate and beautifully-designed punchout board game by Chris Ware ("the Acme Novelty Library"), and even a hard-to-find classic story by Walt Kelly (creator of "Pogo").

The book's a beautiful package--an oversized hardcover just perfect for sprawling on the floor or crawling up in a lap with. Some of the pieces are straight-forward, somewhat twisted retellings of fairy tales and folktales, others are games or puzzles, but every one of them has a distinctive and colorful charm. You'll have your own favorites--mine are the Japanese-style, subtly-toned "Fisherman and the Sea Princess" by David Mazzucchelli and the macabre but pointedly-moral "The Hungry Horse" by Kaz--but there's stories in here for every sensibility and mood, outrageous or subtle. And don't think that just because it's 'comic-booky' that it's not great: teach your kids how to read visual storytelling, how to follow the word balloons, captions, and panel sequences, and they'll soon be ready for some of the finest the medium has to offer: 'Calvin and Hobbes,' 'Tintin,' 'Akiko,' 'The Spirit' --all of them great stories *and* storytelling, even though the characters are in little boxes talking with word balloons.

24 of 26 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Great initiative. Let's see more like it!, October 28, 2000

By 

Yakov Hadash (New York, NY) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Little Lit: Folklore and Fairy Tale Funnies (Hardcover)

LITTLE LIT, the brainchild of comics master Art Spiegelman, was created to fill a void in comics: There is nothing out there anymore for kids. He looked around himself and saw talent brimming over the surface, but no one creating for the people who made comics popular in the first place. On the back, it says, "COMICS -- They're not just for grown-ups anymore!" The oversize hardcover is a collection of seventeen artists -- some comics creators, some illustrators, some children's book authors -- for this book of fairy tales. Let me say straight out that the art is downright beautiful. Gorgeous. Breathtaking. However, with the exception of one Japanese folk tale, there is absolutely no diversity: All white, and mostly male. There is no excuse for that. Beyond that, however, most of this book is solid gold.

Firstly, it's designed by Chip "BATMAN: ANIMATED" Kidd. He is, quite simply, the best graphic designer in the business. In this volume, he strikes the perfect balance between old-fashioned and avant-garde design. And the covers (no dust jacket -- just the leather hardcover) are by Art Spiegelman. The paper is thick and matte. The only problem here is that the book seems a little fragile, like the pages will come out at the slightest provocation. But I could be wrong about that.

"Prince Rooster" (Spiegelman), "The Leafless Tree" (Joost Swarte), "The Two Hunchbacks" (Lorenzo Mattotti), "The Baker's Daughter" (Harry Bliss), and "The Princess and the Pea" are all lushly drawn, fairly simple fairy tales. "Humpty Trouble" (William Joyce) and "Jack and the Beanstalk" (David Macaulay) are light satires. "The Hungry Horse" (Kaz) is a wonderful story, my favorite *story* of the batch, but "The Fisherman and the Sea Princess" (David Mazzuchelli), the Japanese folk tale is my favorite overall. The only story here that I don't like is "The Sleeping Beauty" (the ending that nobody knows) by Daniel Clowes, because he can't draw people who look good or smile or anything that you need in a fairy tale. Also thrown in is a lost Walt Kelly cartoon, "The Gingerbread Man," originally from FAIRY TALE PARADE (?!) in the 40's. Shorter features are a memory game, a laugh-out-loud "What's Wrong With This Picture," find the twins, and Spookyland (Charles Burns), which is absolutely terrifying -- I think it's too scary for little kids myself. In the front and back is FAIRY TALE ROAD RAGE (Chris Ware), a game with little cars to assemble and chits to punch out and instructions to read. Essentially, you move around the board and create a story by picking random chits and putting them in the appropriate places on your card. When it fills up, you read the story and make up a moral. It's a lot of fun. And the pictures and instructions are absolutely hilarious.

All in all, this book is highly recommended for small children of any age! :)

E-mail if you would like to discuss ([e-mail]) ...... -Koby.

6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Fun for All Ages, June 14, 2001

By 

Jonathan Schaper (Melbourne, Australia) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Little Lit: Folklore and Fairy Tale Funnies (Hardcover)

Good writing and good illustration always have universal appeal. Unfortunately this is something that has been forgotten in the comic book industry lately. It used to be that you could find comics that were fun reading for people of all ages, but that is a rarity these days in which comics are largely marketed to either an adult audience or to adolescent males who equate being "adult" with reading about violence and aggression and anatomically incorrect women in tights. This book (ironically labelled "Comics aren't just for adults anymore" in an echo of DC Comic's mid-1980s "Comics aren't just for kids" ad campaign) is a nice reminder of the way things used to be.

All the stories are wonderfully written and illustrated. The "Jack (and his Mother) and the Beanstalk" would have been better if it diverged less from the traditional in my opinion, but "The Princess and the Pea", which takes hillarious stabs at the original story while being beautifully illustrated in a traditionally romantic style, is effective at poking fun at itself. Most of the stories have obvious morals and can just be taken at their face value, and therefore can't be read on a different level by adults, but they are still enjoyable. The one exception to this is Chris Ware's wonderful original (though depressing) fairy tale and his board game (the instructions are priceless!) which utilizes his usual sardonic and cynical sense of humour very effectively, and I agree with the reviewer below that Charles Burns' Bosch inspired double-page spread might be a little disturbing to adults, but seen through innocent eyes I believe kids will find it more humourous.