From School Library Journal
Kindergarten-Grade 2?A pleasant but rather bland condensation of a traditional tale. One of the sources cited, Sara Cone Bryant's "Billy Beg and His Bull" from Best Stories to Tell to Children (Houghton, 1912; o.p.), is much like Seumas MacManus's wonderful retelling in In Chimney Corners (Doubleday & McClure, 1899; o.p.), in which Billy and the Bull are lifelong companions. The old versions have wonderful runs of poetic language and lots of action, a fair amount of which is violent. As well as gentling the story, Climo seems to want to democratize it. The hero is not a king's son but the son of a traveling peddler. He is described as being small in stature with inordinately large feet and the reteller makes much of the fact that he is ridiculed for his appearance. She even names him Becan, or "Little One." There is no magic stick that turns into a sword and gives the lad wondrous strength, and no belt from the bull's hide to make him invincible. Instead, the bull tells Becan to take his tail after he is dead because it will protect him. In fact, the tail kills a giant and the dragon almost on its own accord when the boy unleashes it. The tidy, full- and double-page illustrations are done in pastel colors and look like opaque watercolors. The people's faces are round and simple. It's fine for young picture-book readers and squeamish parents. However, Ellin Greene's retelling, Billy Beg and His Bull (Holiday, 1994), is much closer to the early versions, with its spirited text and earthy and humorous illustrations by Kimberly Bulcken Root.?Marilyn Iarusso, New York Public Library
Copyright 1996 Reed Business Information, Inc.
From Booklist
Ages 5^-8. Becan, an Irish lad ridiculed for his huge feet, befriends a bull with magic powers who feeds him and bequeaths him his tail as a belt. With the belt, Becan vanquishes a giant, taking his sword and boots. With the giant's sword, Becan slays the dreaded Serpent, saving Princess Finola and losing a boot in his departure. According to the appended note, this "Cinderella" variant is based primarily on Douglas Hyde's "The Bracket Bull" and Sara Cone Bryant's "Billy Beg and His Bull." The retelling is satisfactory but lacks enough cultural detail to give it a distinctive Irish flavor. The illustrations are overly pretty and romanticized. When the text specifies a "blue-green sea," the picture shows a pinkish purple ocean. In a robust story of courage and danger, the dainty illustrations seem incongruous. This will be useful primarily in libraries where Climo's earlier titles,
The Egyptian Cinderella (1989) and
The Korean Cinderella (1993), are popular.
Linda Perkins
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