From Publishers Weekly
This expansively illustrated edition of a well-loved epic romance, told here in Sir George Webbe Dasent's 1859 translation from the Norwegian, has lost none of its Gothic beauty and irresistible power. Dasent's translation is a real page-turner, told in a relaxed, conversational style that manages to be at once soothing and suspenseful. Readers will follow eagerly the plight of the beautiful, unnamed lassie, who must travel to a far-off kingdom to rescue her beloved prince from the clutches of an evil--and very ugly--bride. Only a rather swift resolution sounds a slightly jarring note in the otherwise engrossing tale. Lynch's sweeping paintings in dark greens and browns, with their large close-ups and exciting shifts in perspective, expertly capture the story's heroic scale. Several spreads are especially noteworthy: the dizzying bird's-eye-view of the heroine and her bear, dwarfed by the palace's massive architecture; the North Wind, rising from the mists like a bearded Old Testament patriarch, carrying the speck of a girl on his back as the seas roil below. The book's lavish endpapers, in the style of an Old World cartographer, point the way to this enticing kingdom east o' the sun and west o' the moon. Ages 4-up.
Copyright 1992 Reed Business Information, Inc.
--This text refers to the
Hardcover
edition.
From School Library Journal
Kindergarten-Grade 4 Barlow has created vibrant watercolor and colored pencil illustrations to accompany the classic George Webbe Dasent translation of this popular Norwegian folk tale. Each full-page illustration and its facing page of text are bordered by two bands of contrasting colorsome marbleized, some lined, some figuredseparated by double lines of sharper colors. These borders both embolden the text and create the effect of looking through the window into the scene. Many of the paintings have a folk art quality about them due to Barlow's simple rendering of people, clothing, and furnishings. Details abound: patterns in clothing and furniture, gnarling of tree branches and detailing of household objects. Of the three individual editions now in print, Barlow's illustrations are neither as ethereal as Michael Hague's (HBJ, 1980) nor as romantic as Mercer Mayer's (Four Winds, 1980), yet it is appealing in its own right. Only Barlow's edition has the original text. Susan Scheps, Shaker Heights Public Library, Ohio
Copyright 1988 Reed Business Information, Inc.
--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
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