Saturday, May 23, 2009

The Great Quillow

By James Thurber (c) 1944
Our library has the Harcourt Brace & Co. 1994 edition with illustrations by Steven Kellogg

Ooooo, this is really good.

Message: intimidation and brutality are overcome not by weaponry or physical traps, but rather by storytelling, planning and toys.

Story: Long for a three-year old, but our five-year old has the attention span for it. Gets a little detailed with the town council bits, but the repetition of the reactions of all the different tradesmen is fun. Other townsmen want to crush, poison, burn, etc. the giant, but the town toymaker sees the futility of this and convinces the town to participate in stories he weaves, eventually driving the giant to his own destruction.

Illustrations and layout: This edition is in a large layout format, with a mix of layouts for the watercolor-and-ink panels. The variety of presentation has been good for a half-dozen readings, and will be good for many more.

On the list of one of my potentially great children's books. Let's revisit it in a couple of years, yes?

2 comments:

  1. You could follow this up with Pete Seeger's "Abiyoyo" and "Abiyoyo Returns".

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  2. Thanks for the recommendation -- they both look like lots of fun, and I've enjoyed any Pete Seeger that I've been exposed to.

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