Review by New York Times Review
HANS CHRISTIAN ANDERSEN'S 1836 "Thumbelina" is the story of a tiny, passive girl, no bigger than your thumb. She is good at cleaning and music. She has a kind heart. She is exceptionally good-looking and modest. "She had no way of knowing how lovely she was," as Sylvia Long puts it in her retelling. Everyone loves Thumbelina. In fact, they love her so much they want to either abduct her, marry her or rescue her. There seems to be nothing else to do with Thumbelina, actually. Here's the story: Magically born from a flower, tiny Thumbelina is soon kidnapped by horrid toads for purposes of marriage. She's rescued by fish and a butterfly, abducted by an amorous beetle, abandoned, adopted by a mouse, forced to marry a mole and rescued by a swallow just before the wedding. Then she marries royalty and lives happily ever after. The tale may be inherently irritating to parents hoping to present their children with models of girls and women not so mired in the values of Andersen's 19th century. These two new editions, though lovely, compound this problem by portraying Thumbelina as a blue-eyed white girl possessing the even features and slim build that have been representing ideal beauty to Westerners for more than a century. It's a bit depressing, actually, that neither book pushes to reimagine the story visually. Yes, it's nice to have pretty new pictures of a famous tale, but beyond that, why this story? What interpretation are the artists offering? Why revisit "Thumbelina" now? There are no answers in these two books. They are conventional as can be - staid, even - though that's not to say that they're without value. Both are exceedingly attractive, and the story is a wild adventure filled with eccentric animal characters. My 8-year-old, who usually considers herself rather old for picture books, grabbed them off my desk and read them cover to cover one after the other. Thumbelinas drawn by Sylvia Long, above, and Bagram Ibatoulline, below. Long is best known for illustrating the spectacularly beautiful picture book "An Egg Is Quiet" by Dianna Aston. Her watercolors bring out the wonder of the natural world with an almost emotional intensity. Several spreads in her "Thumbelina" are vertical, requiring children to turn them to get a proper look, emphasizing that the book is as much a beautiful object as a story to get lost in. THE old mama toad in Long's book seems anatomically correct down to the flecks in the irises, making her all the more horrifying. The beetles, though dressed in pearls and filmy gowns, have detailed wings and antennas. The water, the flowers, the gently cloudy sky, the snowcapped mountains beneath the swallow as it flies - all these are so gorgeously and specifically rendered that the centerpiece of the story almost seems to be the landscape as tiny Thumbelina sees it. Long's version is quite faithful to Andersen's original, which is to say wordy and full of details: "She wove herself a bed out of blades of grass and hung it under clover leaves for protection from the rain. She sucked nectar from the flowers for food and drank dew from their leaves every morning." It's well suited to older readers and fairy tale fans. Brian Alderson's "Thumbelina" is more of a departure from the original, though he's known as an Andersen translator ("The Swan's Stories"). His approach is great for reading aloud to small children, since his short sentences and rhythmic language emphasize character. Descriptive passages are axed in favor of dialogue. For example, in Long's book, the mama toad thinks, "What a pretty little wife she would make for my son." Alderson's croaks: "Rek-kek-kek-kek. What a catchi-catchi-catch. She shall wed my Toadikins." Long's field mouse scolds, "Nonsense!" when Thumbelina objects to spending her life underground with the pompous blind mole. Alderson's snaps, "Now don't be obstropolous." Thumbelinas drawn by Sylvia Long, above, and Bagram Ibatoulline, below. Alderson's version is a vigorous interpretation, though it doesn't particularly energize its heroine. Thumbelina herself speaks only a single sentence: "She has been so kind to me," she remarks of bossy Mrs. Fieldmouse. Bagram Ibatoulline's gouache and watercolor paintings give Thumbelina a large-eyed pathos reminiscent of silent movie heroines, but her body and face are so much less detailed than those of his charmingly nefarious antagonists that in some scenes she almost seems a cartoon character adrift in the real world. His pictures are bolder and funnier than Long's, and the brilliant purples and greens of the landscape contrast strongly with the damp grays and browns of the field mouse burrow that traps Thumbelina. One can feel the joyous relief when the swallow rescues her, flying above a bright green meadow, and over all, Alderson and Ibatoulline's recasting tells the story with higher energy and drama. "Thumbelina" has a premise that is inherently enchanting: it's the adventures of a miniature human being. The terrors of giant toads and bugs, the joys of a ride on a swallow or a float on a lily pad - all this will capture children's imaginations in these new editions, just as it has since 1836, whatever one might feel about the limitations of the heroine or the ambitions of the artists. Emily Jenkins's most recent books are "Sugar Would Not Eat It" and "Toy Dance Party."
Copyright (c) The New York Times Company [April 11, 2010]
Review by Publisher's Weekly Review
In Long's faithful retelling of Ander-sen's tale, the tiny Thumbelina is courted by a succession of appalling suitors-a toad, a beetle, and a pompous mole-but escapes a life of misery with the help of a swallow whose life she saved. Working in meticulously drafted ink and watercolor, Long (Because You Are My Baby) lingers over Thumbelina's flower-petal and dried-leaf wardrobe, paints careful closeups of the swallow she cares for, and gives the spiders who help Thumbelina spin the flax for her wedding trousseau little knit sweaters. (Thumbelina herself is blonde and freckled; her California freshness is perhaps the book's only off note.) The prospect of a suffocating life underground-"Don't be stubborn or I shall bite you with my sharp teeth!" scolds the field mouse who acts as Thumbelina's guardian, irritated at her rejection of a secure marriage-is redeemed by Ander-sen's uncharacteristically happy ending, and Long celebrates it with a spectacular foldout of the wedding. Elsewhere, vertical spreads emphasize Thumbelina's tininess relative to gigantic, nodding poppies and gargantuan cattails. A jewel box of a work whose pages invite lingering. Ages 4-8. (Apr.) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved
(c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved
Review by School Library Journal Review
Gr 2-4-While following the familiar story line of Hans Christian Andersen's original, Long effectively condenses the narrative and gives a contemporary touch to the wording. But what holds the eye is the artist's impressive use of the spreads (sometimes held in vertical mode). Thumbelina's adventures with the beautifully drawn toad, beetles, mouse, mole, and swallow unfold in jewel-like colors, defined textures, and well-imagined details to complete the surroundings. Unfortunately, the tiny girl displays awkward facial expressions and distorted body stances, marring the presentation. Nevertheless, children-girls in particular-will undoubtedly delight in the happy ending where a gatefold reveals the flower-filled wedding of Thumbelina and her prince. Recommended for libraries needing a new copy of the story.-Barbara Elleman, Eric Carle Museum of Picture Book Art, Amherst, MA (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
Long does justice, for the most part, to Andersen's classic with her richly detailed scenes of Thumbelina's travels. Whimsical perspectives and spreads oriented in different directions allow for views both above and below ground, and a final gatefold showcases Thumbelina's wedding. The only disappointment is Thumbelina herself, whose unexceptional appearance is eclipsed by the detailed settings. (c) Copyright 2010. The Horn Book, Inc., a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted. All rights reserved.
(c) Copyright The Horn Book, Inc., a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
Review by Kirkus Book Review
Long hews very closely to the Hans Christian Andersen tale, in which a woman longing for a child finds a tiny one in a flower grown from an enchanted barley seed given to her by a fairy. Thumbelina, as she is called, is abducted by a toad but rescued by fish and a butterfly, found ugly by a group of beetles and fed through the bitter winter by a mouse in exchange for telling stories and keeping things tidy. The mouse, however, wants to marry Thumbelina off to her neighbor the mole, who never sees the sun. It is Thumbelina's kindness that saves her; she nurses an injured swallow over the winter, and he in turn saves her, flying her to a warm land where she finds a prince "scarcely larger than herself," who marries her at once. While Thumbelina and the prince look like young adolescentsand earthbound ones at thatrather than fairies or sprites, the fish, birds and, especially, flowers are gorgeous ink-and-watercolor images. The illustrator has made a lush and vivid world for her Thumbelina to inhabit. (Fairy tale. 5-9)]] Copyright Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
