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Searching... Monmouth Public Library | THURBER | Searching... Unknown |
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Summary
Summary
This contemporary fairy tale by one of America's best-loved authors brings style and humor to the familiar folk theme of overcoming brute strength with intelligence and courage. "The artwork captures the bustle and the bickering of the story as well as the terror and the wonder. A fine choice to read aloud, even to children who could read it to themselves."-Booklist
Author Notes
Born in Columbus, Ohio, Thurber was blinded in one eye in a childhood accident. He attended Ohio State University but left without earning a degree. In 1925 he moved to New York City, where he joined the staff of the New Yorker in 1927 at the urging of his friend E. B. White. For the rest of his lifetime, Thurber contributed to the magazine his highly individual pieces and those strange, wry, and disturbing pen-and-ink drawings of "huge, resigned dogs, the determined and sometimes frightening women, the globular men who try so hard to think so unsuccessfully." The period from 1925, when the New Yorker was founded, until the death of its creator-editor, Harold Ross, in 1951, was described by Thurber in delicious and absorbing detail in The Years with Ross (1959).
Of his two great talents, Thurber preferred to think of himself primarily as a writer, illustrating his own books. He published "fables" in the style of Aesop (see Vol. 2) and La Fontaine (see Vol. 2)---usually with a "barbed tip of contemporary significance"---children's books, several plays (two Broadway hits, one successful musical revue), and endless satires and parodies in short stories or full-length works. "The Secret Life of Walter Mitty," included in My World---and Welcome to It (1942), is probably his best-known story and continues to be frequently anthologized. T. S. Eliot described Thurber's work as "a form of humor which is also a way of saying something serious."
(Bowker Author Biography)
Reviews (4)
School Library Journal Review
K-Gr 4-Pure Kellogg! Thurber's beloved classic, originally published in 1944, comes dramatically to life in the artist's capable hands. Done in his trademark whimsical, rollicking style, the acrylic, ink, and colored-pencil illustrations grossly exaggerate the moods and trappings of Hunder. This meddling giant terrorizes the countryside demanding daily rations of mammoth proportions. Despite their skepticism, the townspeople give their confidence to Quillow the toy maker, who has a plan to cleverly outwit the brute. The tiny hero, with his moplike white hair, looks like one of his own toy creations. The oversized format gives Kellogg free reign to provide details galore. The exciting page design is varied to enhance the printed text, yet always provides a vista for important action scenes. A delightful chuckle of a book!-Ronald Jobe, University of British Columbia, Vancouver, Canada (c) Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
Publisher's Weekly Review
With his typically effusive and cheerfully exaggerated illustrations, Kellogg (The Wizard Next Door) injects extra measures of zaniness into this 50-year-old David-and-Goliath tale by the legendary humorist. Because he is ``a droll and gentle fellow'' and produces remarkable toys, the villagers treat Quillow the toymaker with bemused tolerance. The town's sleepy complacency is shattered by the arrival of Hunder, an evil but none-too-bright giant. As the rest of the town scurries to accommodate Hunder's daily requirement of ``three sheep, a pie made of a thousand apples, and a chocolate as high and as wide as a spinning wheel,'' the sly Quillow lulls the giant with stories, all the while plotting the ogre's downfall. The length and pacing of the story speak to a bygone age in children's publishing, in some places straining the picture book format. However, Kellogg often overcomes the challenge by ``tiling'' blocks of text among panels of art, varying the design on each spread. And nothing can diminish the humorous juxtaposition of Hunder's hulking gullibility and wide-mouth ugliness with Quillow's quirky professional affect. Ages 6-up. (Oct.) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved
Horn Book Review
Thurber's classic literary fairy tale about Hunder the giant, huge and stupid, who is outwitted by Quillow the toymaker, small but clever, has been reissued for a new generation of readers, young and old. Nothing can equal Thurber's distinctive, wistful, apparently unstudied style; but Kellogg's illustrations come close. A great collaboration, and none too soon. From HORN BOOK 1994, (c) Copyright 2010. The Horn Book, Inc., a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
Booklist Review
Gr. 3-5, younger for reading aloud. Quillow, a toymaker by trade, is called "the Great Quillow" as a joke, for he's the shortest man in his idyllic little town. When the horrible giant Hunder comes and demands a new house, a new jerkin, a pair of boots, and a daily tribute of sheep, chocolate, apple pies, and storytelling, the horrified town councilmen put forth various plans to foil him, sneering at Quillow's remark that their plots will only annoy the giant. Using his toys and storytelling, the little fellow soon becomes the Great Quillow indeed, outwitting the giant and sending him to his destruction. An artist to the end, Quillow draws on his fear of the giant in creating a new toy to amuse the children. The lively full-color illustrations are pure Kellogg: energetic line, sunlit color, broad humor, subtle detail, and exuberant spirit. Narrow borders frame the pictures and text, but characters sometimes extend beyond their frames, because they're too full of energy or (in the giant's case) too large or (in the townsfolk's) just too busy to be concerned about staying within the lines. The artwork captures the bustle and the bickering of the story as well as the terror and the wonder. This original fairy tale, first published in 1944, is longer than the stories in most picture books. A fine choice to read aloud, even to children who could read it to themselves. ~--Carolyn Phelan