Review by Booklist Review
Mitchell and Ibatoulline follow The Nightingale (2002) with another beautifully illustrated version of a Hans Christian Andersen story. Mitchell's words are rich and colloquial. He doesn't cite sources, but his telling brings to mind Erik Christian Haugaard's translation of Andersen's tale about a soldier who finds riches and escapes death with the help of a magic tinderbox. What stands out most, though, are Ibatoulline's dramatic illustrations. Rendered in pen-and-ink, the figures spring gloriously to life: the handsome soldier, gnarled witch, and imposing, wild-eyed monster-dogs are all unforgettable, as are the boisterous eighteenth-century street and banquet scenes crowded with expressive villagers. The colors--parchment backgrounds accented with the elegant, pastel shades of painted china--extend the Old World flavor and provide a stately counterpoint to the wild, scary activity. Reminiscent of Nancy Ekholm Burkert's exquisite illustrations for the Caldecott Honor Book Snow- White and the Seven Dwarfs (1972), these captivating scenes will show well to both large and small groups, and the book is an excellent choice for classroom units on Andersen. --Gillian Engberg Copyright 2007 Booklist
From Booklist, Copyright (c) American Library Association. Used with permission.
Review by School Library Journal Review
Gr 2-5-The soldier may be handsome and the princess lovely, but the old witch and the three giant dogs along with the beautifully developed settings really create the superb fairy-tale ambience of this robust telling of Andersen's tale. Ibatoulline's finely hatched pen drawings, washed in muted tones, resemble lithographs and have an appropriately old-fashioned look. His wide double-page scenes include broad vistas of the mountainous countryside with far-off palaces and close-up views of characters and actions. Mitchell's faithful retelling is a bit verbose at times, but Andersen himself tended to be wordy. The scraggly witch is quite wonderful, but of course she comes to a quick end. "So he cut her head off. Her body fell to the ground, and her head fell beside it." This is not a tale for the faint of heart, but it's a rich rendering of the durable, intriguing classic.-Margaret Bush, Simmons College, Boston (c) Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
(c) Copyright Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
Review by Horn Book Review
(Primary, Intermediate) What bitter dreams haunted Andersen when he penned this dark tale? He must have known the Grimms' ""The Blue Light,"" which also features a discharged soldier who causes the death of a witch. The Grimms gave the soldier motives; Andersen offers no such justifications. His soldier, laden with gold, beheads the witch to avoid handing over the tinderbox as promised. He gives ""lots of money to the poor"" but squanders more on his own pleasures; ordered to save him from hanging, his three magical helpers (""the [dog] with eyes like clocks, the one with eyes like dinner plates, and the one with eyes like wagon wheels"") violently kill judges and future in-laws alike. This in no way precludes the soldier's happy wedding and ascension to the throne. Mitchell's excellent retelling is close to such established translations as Keigwin's; Andersen's quizzical wit and offbeat satire are intact. Ibatoulline's expansive spreads, elegantly drawn in detailed pen and ink, resemble etchings; appropriately, the added watercolor is in delicate yet somber tones. His soldier is an appealingly young, clean-cut antihero, his witch gruesome and hung about with dead things, including a human skull -- a pictorial excuse, at least, for her death. Costumes and architecture suggest northern Europe somewhat before Andersen's own time, a sumptuous setting for this strange, profoundly provocative classic. Copryight 2007 of The Horn Book, Inc. All rights reserved. (c) Copyright 2010. The Horn Book, Inc., a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
(c) Copyright The Horn Book, Inc., a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
Review by Kirkus Book Review
Mitchell and Ibatoulline, after Andersen's The Nightingale, adapt another of the Danish master's tales. A soldier encounters an ugly witch who offers to enrich him for a favor--fetching a lost tinderbox from a lamp-lit hall inside a hollow tree. The soldier, following her instructions, tames three massive, huge-eyed dogs guarding coin-filled rooms. Arguing with the witch over the retrieved tinderbox, the soldier severs her head. In town, his fortunes wax and wane with his riches. Discovering that striking the tinderbox convenes the magical dogs to do his bidding, he crafts nighttime visits with a beautiful, cosseted princess, enraging her royal parents. The summoned dogs foil the soldier's hanging, wreaking murderous mayhem that presages his marriage to the princess. There are no source notes, but Mitchell's crisp retelling seems faithful to Haugaard's translation, occasionally substituting less colloquial terms (eyes like dinner plates instead of millstones, for example). Ibatoulline's muted watercolors, roiling with inked crosshatching, capture both period details and the curiously satisfying menace of the canine trio. Handsome and engrossing. (Picture book. 6-10) Copyright ©Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
