The Wild Swans by Hans Christian Andersen, Naomi Lewis, Anne Yvonne Gilbert (Illustrator), Anne Yvonne Gilbert (Illustrator), Naomi Lewis (Translator)

From the Publisher

Eleven brothers, turned into wild swans by an evil stepmother, are saved by the sacrifices of their beautiful sister, Susan.

Publishers Weekly

A wicked stepmother has cast the beautiful princess Elisa out of the palace and turned Elisa's 11 brothers into swans. So begins this lengthy, sentimental retelling of Hans Christian Andersen's well-loved tale. In elaborate particulars Hautzig covers the evil queen's depredations and the loving princess's valiant quest to restore her brothers to human form. But because she delivers her account so thoroughly, taking the reader from Elisa's solitary journey to her meeting with the swans to her learning the secret of the stepmother's spell, from her imprisonment on charges of witchcraft to the eventual happy ending, her narration is a bit sluggish even by fairy-tale standards. Elisa's vows to learn patience and insistent goodness, meanwhile, strike a falsely inspirational note in the otherwise moving story. Kaila, with whom Hautzig collaborated on an edition of Thumbelina , favors delicate watercolors in misty hues of green and rose, with the deliberately flat look of early Renaissance religious art. But because they render Elisa's world in such quiet miniature, they bear little stylistic connection to the story. Ages 5-8. (Sept.)

Publishers Weekly

Anne Yvonne Gilbert breathes new life into a classic Hans Christian Andersen tale, The Wild Swans, trans. by Naomi Lewis. Gilbert's colored-pencil renderings of the 11 princes turned to graceful swans by their evil stepmother, the queen, and their sister, who finds a way to break the spell, brim with flowers and gentle insects and animals. Copyright 2005 Reed Business Information.

BookList

When the king remarries, his new wife turns him against his daughter, Elisa, and changes his sons into wild swans. Enduring great suffering for her brothers' sake, Elisa makes them shirts of nettles to break their enchantment. Hautzig's retelling is somewhat simpler than the Haugaard translation, and her graceful prose suits the story well. Kaila, a Finnish illustrator nominated for the 1992 Hans Christian Andersen Award, offers a series of illustrations that are delicate, grave, and dreamlike. Quite simply, this is the loveliest edition of this classic fairy tale available.

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