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Isadora, Rachel
4 Reviews
(2)
K-3
This Africa-set telling showcases Hansel's quick thinking and Gretel's bravery. Persecuted by their stepmother and the witch, the kids are also eyed by jungle animals, frogs, and spiders. Each spread (of striated cut-paper and oil paint collage in myriad patterns) is attentively designed and illustrated, with special care paid to facial expressions and body language.
Reviewer: Elissa Gershowitz
| Horn Book Magazine Issue:
May, 2009
(3)
K-3
In her fourth African recasting of European folktales, Isadora shows a Rapunzel blessed with abundant dreadlocks that reach to the savanna where her lonely tower is placed. As before, the retelling is spare and the collage paintings lush. Although a few spreads are unfocused, most make effective dramatic use of the page.
Reviewer: Roger Sutton
(2)
K-3
Isadora uses collages of paint-striated paper plus scraps of fabric to give this Grimms' tale an African setting. The fisherman and his greedy wife live in a pigsty; the wife's aggrandizements culminate in her becoming pope--only to be reduced to her original state when "she wants to be God." It's a handsome book, and the tale sits comfortably in its new setting.
Reviewer: Joanna Rudge Long
| Horn Book Magazine Issue:
March, 2008
(3)
K-3
The classic Andersen version is familiar: everyone wants to marry the prince, so his mother, keen to identify a true princess, places a pea beneath twenty mattresses. Isadora sets the tale in East Africa, and she uses cut paper to create astonishing folkloric tableaux.
Reviewer: Nell Beram
4 reviews
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