The Wild Swans [Hardcover]

Ken Setterington (Adapter), Nelly Hofer (Illustrator), Ernst Hofer (Illustrator)

Book Description

Publication Date: September 30, 2003 | Age Level: 8 and up | Grade Level: 3 and up

Selected by the Children’s Book Committee at Bank Street College of Education as one of the 2004 Best Children’s Books for the Year

In the grand tradition of fairy tales, a king becomes lost in an enchanted forest. In order to save himself, he strikes a dreadful bargain with an elderly witch: he will marry her daughter if only she will show him the way home.

The king fears that the daughter too is a witch, so he hides his eleven sons and his only daughter from the woman he has pledged to marry.

After his marriage, his new queen discovers the children and casts a spell, turning the princes into swans. But she doesn’t know there is a twelfth child, a princess. It is up to the princess to find her brothers and break the spell that binds them.

Renowned storyteller Ken Setterington has borrowed from European folk traditions, including the Brothers Grimm, to tell a timeless story.

Nelly and Ernst Hofer’s exquisite paper cut art make this a beautiful book for reading and for gift giving.

Editorial Reviews

From School Library Journal

Grade 3-5-Although no source notes are provided, it appears that Setterington has based his retelling on the Grimm version of this traditional tale. He retains all of the major plot elements and uses a prose style that is graceful and appropriate. As in the author and illustrators' collaboration for The Snow Queen (Tundra, 2000), this book showcases the Hofers' expertise in scherenschnitt (paper cutting). Elegant, amazingly intricate full-page illustrations grace the beginning of each of the six parts of the tale, with smaller pieces tucked into the borders of most of the other pages. The length of the story, coupled with the lovely but rather somber aspect of the black-on-white artwork, makes this a good choice for older readers, and an excellent way to introduce them to this unique art form. An afterword contains extensive information on the history of scherenschnitt.
Grace Oliff, Ann Blanche Smith School, Hillsdale, NJ
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

From Booklist

Gr. 4-6, younger for reading aloud. Borrowing from European folklore, including the Brothers Grimm and Hans Christian Andersen, and illustrated with traditional cut-paper art, this lengthy fairy tale tells of brave Elise, who weaves stinging nettles into shirts that save her 11 brothers from a curse that has transformed them into swans. The clear storytelling style blends the contemporary ("What was he to do?") with the traditional ("lest she cast a spell on them"), and Setterington adds romance and suspense as the king falls in love with Elise and the people threaten to burn her as a witch. The small, intricate, black-and-white illustrations, delicate and formal in design, fit well with the story of twisting paths, woven yarn, and magical transformation. A long, fascinating chapter at the back fills in facts about the history and tradition of cut-paper art. Hazel Rochman
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Reading level: Ages 8 and up
  
• Hardcover: 40 pages
• Publisher: Tundra Books; First edition. edition (September 30, 2003)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0887766153
• ISBN-13: 978-0887766152
• Product Dimensions: 7.3 x 0.4 x 9.3 inches
• Shipping Weight: 10.1 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,895,958 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Most Helpful Customer Reviews

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Princess Elsie has to rescue her brothers from being wild swans, August 7, 2005

By 

Lawrance M. Bernabo (The Zenith City, Duluth, Minnesota) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: The Wild Swans (Hardcover)

Once upon a time there was a king who became lost in an enchanted forest. There he encountered an old woman who agreed to show him the way home, but only if he agreed to marry her daughter. Although she was the most beautiful woman the king had ever seen, he feared that his bride-to-be was also a witch, so he agreed to the proposal of the old woman with one condition. The wedding would take place in three days and the king would go back to prepared. But while the preparations for the wedding were underway the king made sure that his twelve children, eleven princes and the young princess Elise, were secreted away where the new queen would be unable to find them. However, the king would go and visit his children each day and the new queen was suspicious. She followed the king and learned about the princes, so, being a witch she made white silk shirts for each of the princes with a magic spell sewn in that turned the princes into swans during the daytime. But the queen did not know about Elise, and the princess is determined to find a way to break the spell cast over her brothers.

Author Ken Setterington has borrowed from various European folk traditions, including the Brothers Grimm and Hans Christian Andersen, to retell the story of "The Wild Swans." What we have here is a slightly more ambitious tale than most younger children would have likely heard before, so this is more of an intermediate level fairy story. What older students will find interesting is the way that the simple premise of the story becomes complicated: not only does Elise have problems finding a way to break the spell, but actually getting what she needs and being allowed to do it are both complicated along the way.

The artwork by Nelly and Ernst Hofer is done in the delicate traditional cut-paper art of "scherenschnitt." The Hofers learned this folk art in their native Switzerland and have passed it on to their children back on the family farm in Ontario. There are over a half-dozen full page pieces, but the Hofers also do smaller pieces, sometimes down to a single figure, along with borders, so that there is always something for young readers to look at on every two-page spread. Young readers might be inspired to try their own hand a paper cutting, at which point they will find out how difficult the artform is to practice. There is a short section on the art of paper cutting in the back of the book, where we learn not only of the history of the artform but that the best-known kind of paper cutting, the silhouette, was named after Etienne de Silhouette, the vastly unpopular controller general of finances in France during the reign of King Louis XV who was so well known for being a miser that his name was used to describe anything that was cheap, such as paper profiles. But silhouettes are something most young would-be artists can probably handle.