Saint George and the Dragon retold by Margaret Hodges. Illustrations by Trina Schart Hyman
Hodges, M. (1984) Saint George and the Dragon: A golden legend adapted from Edmund Spenser's Faerie Queene. London: Little, Brown and Company
Summary:
This book is a retelling of Edmund Spenser's poem The Faerie Queene first published in 1590. The original story was to honor the England's Queen Elizabeth I. The story of Saint George (the patron saint of England) and the dragon is centuries old. Hodges simplifies Spenser's poem making it easy for children to understand.
Her version of the story follows the Red Cross knight, George, who is sent on a quest by the Queen of the Fairies to kill the dragon while accompanying princess Una whose homeland is under attack by the dragon. After many trials George defeats the dragon and marries Una.
Impressions:
I read the original poem as an undergraduate student and loved it. I was excited when I saw this on the book list because I wanted to see how the topic was handled. It is always exciting when writers take classics and rework them for a new generation. This story has great adventure and love. The illustrations are excellent. I highly recommend the story.
Reviews:
Del Negro, J. M. (1985). Saint George and the Dragon (Book). School Library Journal, 31(5), 76. Library, Information Science & Technology Abstracts with Full Text, EBSCOhost (accessed February 3, 2013).
Hodges capably retells the legend of St. George and the Dragon, a popular well-known fragment from Spenser's Faerie Queene. She had made it a coherent, palatable story suitable for a wide range of ages. The action is fast-paced and immediate-George, the Red Cross Knight, sent questing by the Queen of Fairies, accompanies the princess Una back to her father's kingdom to slay the dragon that besets it or to die in the attempt. After the tradition three attempts he succeeds, and everyone lives happily ever after. This retelling is more than adequate, and Hyman's illustrations are uniquely suited to this outrageously romantic and appealing legends. Fairies and unicorn intertwine with cross-emblazoned shields and red-winged angels in the borders. The paintings are richly colored, lush, detailed and dramatic. Hyman's dragon is appropriately brave; and her princess-bless her-is a redhead, not a blond. This is beautifully crafted book, a fine combination of author and illustrator.
McConnell, R. M. (1990). Saint George and the Dragon (Book). School Library Journal, 36(3), 209. Library, Information Science & Technology Abstracts with Full Text, EBSCOhost (accessed February 3, 2013).
Less literary than Spenser's adventure as retold by Hodges in Saint george and the Dragon, McCaughrean tells the kind of crusader tale popularly told about the wandering champion who became the patron saint of England. Here, George of Lydda comes across Sabra, the king's daughter, staked out for a dragon that threatens their town. A new British illustrator pictures the setting with a golden atmosphere and a romantic surrealism that includes stone ruins and windowed manors, and ends with visual reference to modern wars as well. Townspeople wear frantic or grotesque expressions-and the dragon is seen as a huge lizard with pterodactyl-like clawed wings as forelimbs, taloned hind legs, and a lobed and spiked dorsal mane. Once he subdues the dragon, this Red Cross knight does not settle down, but goes on to the other dragons and other times-which the reteller ties in with her afterword. Hard to locate in print, this adventure makes a good addition to folk and dragon lore.
Library Use:
This book will be a great addition to any library for a number of reasons. First it is a great book because of its illustrations. It could be marketed that way. Second it could be used as part of an exhibit detailing retellings of fairytales or cultural tales. The library could do a display on stories of England.
The Three Pigs by David Wiesner
Wiesner, D. (2001). The Three Pigs. New York, NY: Clarion Books.
Synopsis: This book is a twist on the original story of The Three Little Pigs. The pigs start the story the same way as the original: Three little pigs go out in the world and build their homes. The wolf comes a knockin' and threatens to blow their house down, which he does. The twist comes when the pigs escape into the pages of the book and are not eaten by the wolf which confuses him. The pigs fold the pages and fly off ending up into other fairy tale books. They enlist the help of creatures in other books to help fight the wolf.
Impressions: The book was very cute and well written. The idea that the pigs do not die but change the story so they all live happily ever after, is such a nice turn of events. I highly recommend this book.
Reviews:
Zaleski, J., Roback, D., Brown, J. M., & Britton, J.
(2001). THE THREE LITTLE PIGS (Book Review). Publishers Weekly, 248(9), 86. Library, Information Science & Technology Abstracts with Full Text, EBSCOhost (accessed February 3, 2013).
As readers have come to expect from the inventive works of
Wiesner, nothing is ever quite as it seems in his picture books. This version
of the pigs' tale starts off traditionally enough--warm, inviting watercolor
panels show in succession the tiny houses, their owner-builders and their
toothy visitor. But when the wolf begins to huff and puff, he blows the pigs
right out of the illustrations. Though Wiesner briefly touched on this theme in
his Free Fall (fans may note a strong resemblance between the dragon in that
volume and the one featured in these pages), he takes the idea of 3-D
characters operating independently of their storybooks to a new level here. The
three pigs land in the margins, which open out onto a postmodern landscape hung
with reams of pages made for climbing on, crawling under and folding up for
paper airplane travel. Together the pigs visit a book of nursery rhymes and
save the aforementioned dragon from death at the hands of a knight. When they
get the dragon home, he returns their kindness by scaring the wolf off
permanently.
Even the book's younger readers will understand the
distinctive visual code. As the pigs enter the confines of a storybook page,
they conform to that book's illustrative style, appearing as nursery-rhyme
friezes or comic-book line drawings. When the pigs emerge from the storybook
pages into the meta-landscape, they appear photographically clear and crisp,
with shadows and three dimensions. Wiesner's (Tuesday) brilliant use of white
space and perspective (as the pigs fly to the upper right-hand corner of a
spread on their makeshift plane, or as one pig's snout dominates a full page)
evokes a feeling that the characters can navigate endless possibilities--and
that the range of story itself is limitless. Ages 5-up. (Apr.)
David Wiesner's postmodern interpretation of this tale plays
imaginatively with traditional picture book and story conventions and with
readers' expectations of both. (Though with Wiesner, we should know by now to
expect the unexpected.) Astute readers will notice the difference between the
cover's realistic gouache portrait of the three pigs (who stare directly out at
the viewer with sentient expressions) and the simple outlined watercolor
artwork on the title page. In fact, the style of the illustrations and the way
the characters are rendered shifts back and forth a few times before the book
is done, as Wiesner explores the possibility of different realities within a
book's pages. The text, set in a respectable serif typeface, begins by
following the familiar pattern--pigs build houses, wolf huffs and puffs, wolf
eats two pigs, etc. But while the text natters on obliviously, the pigs
actually step (or are huffed and puffed) out of the muted-color panel
illustrations without being eaten. Escaping their sepia holding lines and the
frames of their predictable storybook world, they enter a stark white landscape
where they are depicted realistically with more intricate shading. The
now-3-D-looking pigs, released from the story's inevitability, explore this
surrealistic realm. The perplexed wolf remains behind in the two-dimensional
pages, which, when viewed from the pigs' new vantage point, stand vertically in
space, looking altogether like paper dominoes waiting to be knocked down. And
that's what the three pigs do, with glee. The pigs' informal banter appears in
word balloons in a sans-serif font; a few striking wordless spreads feature the
pigs flying (this is Wiesner, after all) across blank spreads on a paper
airplane made from a page of their story. Obviously, there's a lot going on
here, but once you get your bearings, this is a fantastic journey told with a
light touch. The pigs encounter other free-standing story pages; they enter and
exit a nursery rhyme and then a folktale, morphing into and out of each one's
illustrative style. Saccharine, cotton-candy illustrations cloy "Hey
Diddle Diddle" ("Let's get out of here!" one pig exclaims);
precise black-and-white line drawings dignify a folktale about a dragon who
guards a golden rose. The cat and its fiddle as well as the chivalrous dragon
join the pigs in full-color, realistic definition, and eventually the five
friends end up back at the pigs' story. After shaking the type off the pages,
the animals re-enter the tale--but this time on the pigs' own terms. The last
page shows them all happily ensconced in the full-page watercolor illustration,
using letters of text to write their own happy ending while the wolf sits
outside at a nonthreatening distance. Wiesner may not be the first to thumb his
nose at picture-book design rules and storytelling techniques, but he puts his
own distinct print on this ambitious endeavor. There are lots of teaching
opportunities to be mined here--or you can just dig into the creative
possibilities of unconventionality.
(*) indicates a book that the editors believe to be an
outstanding example of its genre, of books of this particular publishing
season, or of the author's body of work.
(g) indicates that the book was read in galley or page
proof. The publisher's price is the general retail price and does not indicate
a possible discount to libraries. Age levels are only suggestions; the
individual child is the real criterion.
Library Use: This can go on a display with variations of fairy tales.
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