THUMBELINA

Enhanced descriptions from Syndetics:

A picture-book retelling of Hans Christian Andersen's sad and funny tale of a little girl no bigger than a thumb, who has to go through many adventures and perils before finding a place to live.

Excerpt provided by Syndetics

Once upon a time there was a woman whose only desire was to have a tiny little child.  Now she had no idea where she could get one, so she went to an old witch and asked her: "Please, could you tell me where I could get a tiny little child?  I would so love to have one." "That is not so difficult," said the witch.  "Here is a grain of barley; it is not the kind that grows in the farmer's fields or that you can feed to the chickens.  Plant it in a flowerpot and watch what happens." Excerpted from Thumbelina by Hans Christian Andersen.  Translation copyright (c) 1974 by Erik Haugaard. Illustrations copyright (c) 1996 by Arlene Graston.  Excerpted by permission of Delacorte Press, a division of the Bantam Doubleday Dell Publishing Group, Inc.  All rights reserved.  No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher. Excerpted from Thumbelina by Hans Christian Andersen All rights reserved by the original copyright owners. Excerpts are provided for display purposes only and may not be reproduced, reprinted or distributed without the written permission of the publisher.

Reviews provided by Syndetics

Publishers Weekly Review

In this spare and lilting unabridged translation of the classic tale, the tiny girl's pleasant life is interrupted when she is stolen in sleep by an ugly matron-toad who seeks a wife for her son. A series of misadventures with goliath-like creatures‘whether a cruel may-bug or a compassionate field mouse‘leaves the beautiful Thumbelina feeling like a misfit. But her kindness in saving a swallow's life is returned when the bird flies her south to its enchanted garden. Here, Thumbelina finally meets her prince and discovers she is home. Graston, in a stunning debut, uses a light-shifting background of subtly tinted tiles as a backdrop to the range of miniature delights (a walnut-shell bed with rose-petal linens, a butterfly-powered sail on a lily pad) and darker emotions (loneliness and feeling out of place). The artwork varies from the silken and jewel-like (flowers and butterfly wings) to the earthy and somber (the cultured mole's underground home, the ailing swallow's feathered chest). The finale grounds the heady sentiment of the fairy-tale ending: the swallow perches on the venerable storyteller's fingers as it relates the tale to Andersen. All ages. (Oct.) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved

School Library Journal Review

PreS - Gr 3-- Another polished presentation in the series, this recording features actress Kelly McGillis reading the classic tale. She employs a variety of voices and accents throughout and, in a nice touch, uses her natural voice for the voice of Thumbelina. The accompanying acoustic music by Mark Isham features reeds and flutes that effectively evoke the rural settings of the story. The tape narration is marred only by several awkward silences during which there seems an unnatural break and there is no music. The accompanying book features a text that is true to the essentials of Andersen's story but that differs in a number of details and incidents from Haugaard's distinguished translation in Complete Fairy Tales and Stories (Doubleday, 1974; o.p.). Johnson's accompanying watercolors are strikingly similar to those by Lisbeth Zwerger, who has illustrated her own version of Thumbeline (Picture Book Studio, 1985) in a slightly darker palette. For general purchase by libraries who are building book/tape collections or who want to increase their Andersen holdings. --Barbara Chatton, College of Education, University of Wyoming, Laramie (c) Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.

Booklist Review

Ages 6^-8. Using as text the unabridged translation by the esteemed Haugaard, this picture book has a longer text than most, but a series of captivating illustrations by Graston will help keep interest focused on the story. Tiny Thumbelina is treasured by her human mother but is stolen away by an ugly toad. Promised in marriage to the toad's son, the girl escapes downstream, where she is first abducted by a May bug and then abandoned by him, rescued by a mouse, and promised in marriage to a mole. Finally, a swallow she has restored to life takes Thumbelina to a distant land, where she meets and marries a tiny fellow as handsome as herself, a king among diminutive angels who gives Thumbelina wings as well as his crown. Varying in size from double-page spreads to small panels, Graston's paintings have a haunting beauty as full of sadness and longing as the tale itself. The pictures, with a palette rich in dusky blues and tawny golds, make this impossible fantasy believable and its heroine sympathetic to the end. --Carolyn Phelan

Horn Book Review

Pencil-and-watercolor illustrations render grotesque characters, an awkward, simpering Thumbelina, but a reassuringly beautiful swallow in this retelling of the classic tale. From HORN BOOK 1990, (c) Copyright 2010. The Horn Book, Inc., a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.

Kirkus Book Review

Though Hautzig abbreviates and simplifies this classic considerably, her style does echo Andersen's wry, sweet, satirical tone. The watercolor illustrations, by a Finnish artist, are outstanding: Thumbelina is a tiny, appealing waif, with the natural world that stages her adventures seen through an affectionate, observant eye. The scenes are set within gentle borders imaginatively borrowed from elements in the illustrations: cobwebs, blossoms, blowing leaves. Lovely art, acceptable text. Copyright ©Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.