Rip van Winkle [Hardcover]

Will Moses (Author)

Book Description

Age Level: 4 and up | Grade Level: P and up

A retelling of the tale in which a man who sleeps for twenty years in the Catskill Mountains wakes to a much-changed world.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

All the elements of Washington Irving's 1820 tale come into play in this retelling, but it's Moses's (The Legend of Sleepy Hollow) Hudson River backdrop that lends elegance to the volume. From the opening scene of great schooners winding their way downriver through the Catskill Mountains, the illustrations situate readers in an enchanted land. Moses lays the groundwork for lazy, good-natured Rip's transformation by portraying the protagonist propped up against a tree, whether in his own yard or just outside the town tavern where he gathers with his friends. Scorned by his wife one too many times, Rip heads for a hilltop with a vista of birches, pines and peak autumn colors. Moses successfully evokes the feeling of time stopped with his portrait of the mysterious band of revelers who lead Rip astray: the Dutchmen garbed in nearly clownish costume, a lone wisp of smoke escaping above the russet mountaintops, the ground in pale, neutral colors. The paintings aptly capture the momentous changes that occur during Rip's 20-year sleep (1769-1789): trees are larger, the tavern sign that once depicted King George III now displays General Washington, and new homes dot an otherwise familiar landscape. Small vignettes serve as close-ups to reveal the personalities of the various characters, though an illustration depicting Rip "surrounded by a troop of children, hanging on his coattails, clambering up his back" would have played up Rip's more positive attributes. Moses's tangible representation of Irving's setting and characters serves as a faithful introduction to the tale. Ages 4-up. (Sept.)
Copyright 1999 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From School Library Journal

Grade 2-5-A trip into the past to see mystifying events that occurred over 200 years ago in New York's Catskill Mountains. Occasional rumbling rolls of thunder cause one to wonder if just maybe-it all happened. Readers will be caught up in the remarkably fresh retelling of Irving's classic tale. Moses's text, while respecting the tone of the original, has a remarkable storytelling quality, highlighted by a crispness of phrase, appropriateness of the description, and clever modernizing of the language. However, what makes this edition so exciting is the joyous collection of folk-style paintings, each reflecting the artist's love of color, simplicity of character interpretation, attention to detail, and interest in history. A new generation of readers will chuckle over and rejoice in Rip's adventures in this lively visual feast.
Ronald Jobe, University of British Columbia, Vancouver, Canada
Copyright 1999 Reed Business Information, Inc.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Reading level: Ages 4 and up
  
• Hardcover: 48 pages
• Publisher: Philomel (September 13, 1999)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0399231528
• ISBN-13: 978-0399231520
• Product Dimensions: 11.3 x 8.8 x 0.5 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.2 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (12 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,645,723 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

12 of 13 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Mystical Truth For The Humble, But No One Else, May 23, 2005

By 

J. E. Barnes - See all my reviews

This review is from: Washington Irving's Rip Van Winkle (Dover Fine Art, History of Art) (Paperback)

Washington Irving's 'Rip Van Winkle' originally appeared in The Sketch Book of Geoffrey Crayon, Gent. (1819) alongside another evocative piece of Americana, 'The Legend of Sleepy Hollow,' a wondrous story equally set in Irving's beloved Hudson River Valley. Though not as multilayered as its longer and slightly more well known fellow, 'Rip Van Winkle' also has long roots in Old World folklore, which is appropriate, since The Sketch Book was the first book by an American writer to be taken seriously by the European audiences that then set the standard in the West. Like the earlier A Knickerbocker's History of New York (1809), 'Rip Van Winkle' is playfully attributed to Dutch antiquarian "Diedrich Knickerbocker," the most famous and certainly the most charming of several personae Irving adopted as an author.

Written in simple but gorgeously visionary language, 'Rip Van Winkle' is the story of the lazy but warm spirited farmer, who, in an effort to escape the "petticoat despotism" of his "termagant" wife, flees for an afternoon's hunting in the lonely, autumnal Catskill Mountains. Accompanied only by Wolf, his faithful but equally harassed dog, Rip is surprised when he notices an odd figure approaching through the wilderness and calling out his name. The "short, square built old fellow with thick bushy hair and a grizzled beard" is carrying a "stout keg," and gestures to Van Winkle to assist him with his burden.

Taking up the "flagon," Rip hesitantly follows the little man into an isolated ravine, and thus steps unknowingly into fairyland; there he finds himself confronted by a solemn and outlandishly dressed party of dwarfs playing at ninepins. Bewildered, Rip pours out the beverage for the assemblage, but can't resist taking a drink himself. Awaking on the mountainside, Van Winkle, finding Wolf gone and a badly rusted gun at his side, returns to town, where he discovers his home in ruins, his wife dead, his children grown to adulthood, the land of his birth now an independent nation freed from the yoke of the British, and himself a stranger to the villagers, who stare at his tattered clothing and exceptionally long facial hair. After making bewildered inquiries, he comes to accept that twenty years have passed.

As a humble, good hearted, and mild tempered dreamer, Rip is an archetypal fairytale hero, though the only dragon slain is Dame Van Winkle, and she accidentally, by the passage of time itself. Like kindred spirit Ichabod Crane, Rip is not an absolute novice when it comes to the fantastic, for he has enjoyed telling the village children who love him "long stories about ghosts, witches, and Indians."

As in traditional Celtic fairy lore, in which eating or drinking while visiting fairyland is often punished with permanent residency there, Rip had made the honest mistake of partaking of fairy foodstuffs, and thus pays an unintended price for doing so. For Celtic fairy lore also featured multiple variations on the theme of fairy time; one minute of perceived human time might be seven years of fairy time, and a man spending a happy week dancing in fairyland might discover that one hundred years or more has past on earth upon his return. Whether dwarfs, elves, boggarts, or fairies, Irving's little people are first cousins to many of the mythological beings of European mythology. Interestingly, like the literally "solitary" fairies of Ireland and Scotland, who were brusque of manner at best and never seen in groups (as were the far more gregarious "trooping" fairies), the little men Rip holds audience with "maintain the gravest faces, the most mysterious silence," and thus represent "the most melancholy party of pleasure he had ever witnessed."

But Irving, who deftly places his story in the historical setting of pre-Revolutionary America, also shrewdly offers his audience other interpretations for Van Winkle's strange mountain encounter. Though narrator Diedrich Knickerbocker acknowledges early that the Catskills are "fairy mountains," one character, sage Peter Vanderdonk, explains that it was the dead "Hendrick Hudson" himself, who returns with his crew every twenty years "to keep a guardian eye on the river," whom Rip encountered, while the postscript indeterminably discusses a variety of Indian spirits, including the Manitou, who haunt the region. One fact entirely overlooked by scholars everywhere is that American literature was born in the daimonic, a tradition begun by Irving but enthusiastically continued by Nathaniel Hawthorne and Edgar Allen Poe.

Like most of Irving's work, at present Rip Van Winkle is a grossly underappreciated piece of pure Americana; certainly American literature could have gotten off to a much worst beginning than it did than with its gallant, optimistic, and uncynical founder. For Rip, despite the precariousness of his experience, learns to accept his fate and settles into a comfortable old age as a venerated member of his community. Not that very long ago, there was a time in America when, taking a direct cue from the story itself, some of America's young schoolchildren were fancifully taught that thunder was not the result of lightning, but merely the echo of the elves' occasional game of mountain bowling.

This definitive edition, first published in 1905, features over fifty genuinely "mesmerizing" though somber watercolor illustrations by British master Arthur Rackham, which perfectly suit Irving's text and will captivate both adults and children alike.

17 of 20 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Rip Van Winkle, January 24, 2001

By 

"skipster32" (Houston, Tx. USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Rip Van Winkle (Hardcover)

This is the original text of Rip Van Winkle by Washington Irving. There are 34 of Rackham's paintings used throughout the text. I do not find the reading level suitable for 4 to 8 year olds. Reading level is about 8th grade (14 years old). Example: "The great error in Rip's composition was an insuperable aversion to all kinds of profitable labour. It could not be from the want of assiduity or perseverance..." This is not for 4 to 8 year olds. Illustrations enhance this classic in American literature.

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars Rip Van Winkle Hardback, October 23, 2001

By A Customer

This review is from: Rip Van Winkle (Illustrated Stories for Children) (Hardcover)

This book is beautifully illustrated but not for the average upper elementary age child. The are lots of long and unusual words that will prove frustrating to the average 4th & 5th grader. It may work well for a read-aloud, but the momentum of the story will be lost by the time you stop and explain the meaning of so many words. Considering the vocabulary, a high school student could easily enjoy and learn about creative writing from this book.