Pitch-perfect Fairy Tales
15 May 2012 Leave a Comment
in Folk and Fairy Tales, Picture Books Tags: Brothers Grimm, John Nickle, Kate Coombs, Ruth Sanderson
Once a hedgehog always a hedgehog? Surely such a thought is unfit for a fairy tale. In her new picture book Hans My Hedgehog, Kate Coombs has taken a bloody old tale of a n
eglected half-boy and tuned it up to enchant more children than the overlooked version tucked away in unabridged collections of Grimms’ folktales.
The illustrator John Nickle presents pitch-perfect acrylic images of a bright-eyed hero with a hedgehog’s prickly head and torso and a human’s spindly legs sporting grass-green tights. From the book’s large cover, our quirky protagonist stands to pique a reader’s interest, with his rumpled sky-blue shirt, pointy-toed red shoes and pink paws holding a tomato-red fiddle with a heart-shaped hole in its middle. Like the author, the illustrator pays respect to fairy-tale conventions, with his use of rich colors, fine details, and intelligent black silhouettes. And in highlighting the characters’ often impish expressions and their energy (soaring roosters! dancing pigs!) he amplifies this adaptation’s humorous, cheerful approach.
Both the new and old story begin with a lonely couple with such an irrational longing for a child that the father foolishly says he’d want a son even if he were half a hedgehog. Of course the preposterous becomes real, and the wife gives birth to a prickly baby who’s a boy only from the waist down. In Ms. Coombs’ tale, the loving parents nurture the little one they name Hans My Hedgehog, in contrast to the dark old tale that describes the cold-hearted couple leaving him alone in a corner.
As the son grows older, he asks his father for a musical instrument. His father brings him a shiny little fiddle (changed from bagpipes in the original), which he plays so well in time he provides the music at the village fairs. As no local girl deigns to pay him any mind, though, the young half-man despairs and decides to leave home.
Into the mysterious forest the protagonist ventures to meet his destiny. Fiddle in paw, Hans My Hedgehog arrives there astraddle a hefty rooster, with his plump pigs trailing them. Three times, people enter the wood, lose their way, and ask Hans to help them leave. Our plucky hero tells the two kings he will assist them on one condition: “If you give me the first thing that meets you when you reach your palace.”
Fairy tale aficionados will foresee the consequences of the king’s rash acceptance of such a demand. In each case, it is the king’s own daughter that first greets her father. The two princesses differ in their response, with the first rejecting such a suitor and assisting her father in trying to cheat Hans from his reward. The second princess agrees to marry the odd creature who has helped her father.
While fairy tales typically provide us with the satisfaction of a clear-cut sense of justice, the stark consequences of people’s deeds sometimes veer into gratuitous violence. In the Grimms’ version, the hedgehog arrives to claim the first princess and leaves with her, punishing her deceit by pricking her so much she bleeds, before he abandons her. Ms. Coombs, however, eschews such gore and simply shows Hans rejecting the undeserving bride.
Ms. Coombs also delivers a welcome upbeat conclusion, as Hans My Hedgehog plays so magically at his own wedding reception that the spell is broken, and his fair bride is rewarded with a handsome young man with red, spiky hair and a loving smile. No doubt the couple will find it much easier to waltz (or twist) the night away.
While some purists might object to the many liberties Ms. Coombs takes in her retelling, most readers will rejoice at this lilting transformation of a too-grim tale. Recommended for ages 6 to 9.
Reprinted with permission of New York Journal of Books.
Also note …
Here’s another reason to kick up your heels: Ruth Sanderson‘s splendid Twelve Dancing Princesses has just been republished, with a radiant new cover. Of the many versions released over the last couple of decades, this one stands out, with Sanderson’s polished storytelling and her glorious Old World paintings. Every girl deserves to have and hold books this beautiful.
And don’t miss my previous post on Taschen’s fabulous new collection The Fairy Tales of the Brothers Grimm.
I’m wondering which retellings of Grimm’s fairy tales you think children most need to hear.
Again to the Brothers Grimm
23 Jan 2012 10 Comments
in Folk and Fairy Tales, middle grade Tags: Brothers Grimm
For 200 years people around the world have explored an enchanted forest of folktales, thanks to the work of Jacob and Wilhelm Grimm. The Fairy Tales of the Brothers Grimm, a lovely new compilation from Taschen, highlights the dazzling artwork that does justice to the potent tales that still hold us spellbound.
The book is a gorgeous affair, from its royal purple cloth cover to its end papers sprouting dreamily winding white vines, followed by radiant stories and images. Then there’s the fanciful Old World font, the lissome, newly commissioned silhouettes; and the astounding banquet of artwork, crisply reproduced in all their glory. If this doesn’t lure you into the Grimm brothers’ tales, nothing will.
Focusing on illustrations created from the 1820s to the 1950s, the collection offers an array of visual and literary riches. The expected stars shine here: the British illustrators L. Leslie Brooke, Walter Crane, Arthur Rackham, and the quirky George Cruikshank, who illustrated the first English translation of the Grimms’ fairy tales. Acclaimed American artists include Wanda Gág (“The Fisherman and His Wife”) and Jessie Willcox Smith, with her radiant heroine for “The Goose Girl.” The fantastical illustrations of Nielsen grace three stories.
The editor has selected 27 appealing stories from the 1857 edition, which incorporated the brothers’ revisions designed to make the stories more engaging and suitable for both young and old audiences. The new translations by Mr. Price hew closely to the Grimm brothers’ versions, resulting in tales that bristle with energy and magic.
Kay Nielsen illustration for “Sleeping Beauty”
Arranged in the order in which the Grimm brothers published them, the tales seem both fresh and familiar. Such favorites as “The Frog Prince,” “Hansel and Gretel,” and “Rumpelstiltskin” are here, but the versions veer from many of the sanitized plots widely published. “Cinderella,” for instance, is no passive Barbie; instead, she’s a tenacious young woman who works to create her new destiny. She has no fairy godmother; instead, she prays at the hazel tree planted at her mother’s grave, and birds come to her aid. “Dear little tree,/Shake your branches and flutter your leaves/And let gold and silver fall down over me!” That’s how she gets her shimmering evening gown and slippers embroidered in silk and silver. She doesn’t need a pumpkin; she dashes off to the ball on her own, thank you. After Cinderella and the prince dance for hours, she needs no clock to tell her it’s time to go. When the smitten young man insists he will accompany her home, she gives him the slip.
Twice more this happens, until the prince wises up and orders the staircase covered in pitch. This time when Cinderella runs off, her golden slipper gets stuck. The gory measures the stepsisters take in order to force their feet into the shoe belonging to the prince’s true love will cause some adults to pause. The poetic justice meted out to them and their cruel mother at the end is also uncompromisingly stark. Adults may choose either to discuss the symbolic nature of the literature or simply to omit the violence when reading aloud to children.
Other folktales, however, do not give us reason to pause, even when reading to children as young as 5. The Fairy Tales of the Brothers Grimm contains gentle stories, such as “The Brave Little Tailor,” “The Golden Goose,” and the beloved “The Elves and the Shoemaker.” And you will encounter little-known treasures such as “The Star Coins,” which beautifully demonstrates the power and wisdom of generosity.
Viktor Paul Mohn lithograph for “The Star Coins”
Delights abound. Most readers will enjoy poring over the magical Old World artwork of the German illustrators Gustav Süs (“The Hare and the Hedgehog”) and Otto Speckter (“Rapunzel”). Wildly different from those are the witty, cartoonish color lithographs for “Puss ’n Boots,” done in 1946 by the Swiss illustrator Herbert Leupin. It’s nearly impossible not to marvel at the stunning variety of images contained in these many-colored pages.
And when the kinder have gone to bed, adults can ponder the editor’s insightful introductory essay and her concise, interesting biographies of the artists.
These strange and wonderful tales deserve to be part of our children’s heritage. Let this heirloom-quality collection cast its spell in your home.
