Jarrell, Randall Books

The Gingerbread Rabbit

Randall Jarrell

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Subjects -> Children's Books -> Ages 4-8 -> Picture Books

Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 1 Average rating: 5.0 of 5

Editorial Review:

Mary's mother has a surprise for her--a delicious gingerbread rabbit. But the real surprises start when this cookie comes to life! The raisin-eyed rabbit, still uncooked on the counter, bemoans his fate to the paring knife, mixing bowl, and rolling pin, when they warn him that nothing has ever escaped from the kitchen without being eaten. When the rabbit spies Mary's mother, just back from the grocery store, a "giant" with "dozens of tremendous shining white teeth the size of a grizzly bear's," he realizes he hasn't a chance. Much to the mother's surprise, her flat, doughy creation makes a run for it! But she wants the gingerbread rabbit for her daughter so much, she races right after him. Garth Williams, illustrator of Charlotte's Web and The Cricket in Times Square captures the chase perfectly with his magical pen-and-ink sketches. Readers will follow breathlessly as the gingerbread rabbit narrowly escapes the guiles of a wily fox, and is finally rescued by an actual rabbit and his wife, who take him into their home to live happily ever after eating lettuce, carrots, and watercress.

This gentle story of a mother's fervent love for her only daughter, and the comical, suspenseful adventures of her rabbit cookie is carefully spun in Jarrell's flawless, slightly tongue-in-cheek prose. A jauntier inanimate rabbit-comes-to-life story than Margery Williams's The Velveteen Rabbit, and a more complex tale than The Gingerbread Man, The Gingerbread Rabbit is a classic read-aloud that youngsters will clamor for again and again. (Ages 5 and older) --Karin Snelson

The Bat-Poet

Randall Jarrell

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 8 Average rating: 5.0 of 5

Editorial Review:

Randall Jarrell's The Bat-Poet is the story of an artist. Although the bat-poet may look like a furry mouse with wings, he swells with an artistic sensibility. One day, he discovers how amazing it is to stay awake during daylight hours, exploring things mostly unseen by standard, nocturnal bats. But when he tries to get his bat friends to stay awake with him, they say, "Day's to sleep in." And so the sensitive bat-poet is left alone to embrace the wonders of the day, including the fascinating activities of the possums, squirrels, chipmunks, and especially the mockingbird. The bat-poet attempts to sing a song like the mockingbird's, "But when he tried, his high notes were all high and the notes in between were all high," so he imitates the mockingbird's words instead, and concocts poetry about how the sun "shines like a million moons" and other daytime marvels. Children will identify with the bat-poet's struggle to be understood, and adults will revel in Jarrell's artful prose and gentle wisdom. Maurice Sendak decorates more than illustrates the book with delicate, endearing pen-and-ink sketches of woodland scenes--the perfect complement to Jarrell's lyrical, philosophical, exquisitely spun fable. School Library Journal writes, "The totality charms by turns the eye, the ear, and the imagination, and as true poetry must, it satisfies the heart." (All ages) --Karin Snelson

The Animal Family (Michael Di Capua Books)

Randall Jarrell

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Subjects -> Children's Books -> Animals -> Bears -> Fiction

Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 21 Average rating: 5.0 of 5

Editorial Review:

"Once upon a time, long, long ago, where the forest runs down to the ocean, a hunter lived all alone in a house made of logs he had chopped for himself and shingles he had split for himself." These words ease the reader into the elegant, dreamlike world of Randall Jarrell's Newbery Honor book The Animal Family. One night, the lonely hunter hears the singing of a mermaid, and because "he himself was as patient as an animal," the mermaid learns to trust him, speaking to him in a voice like the water. In time they teach each other their languages, with many amusing exchanges occurring as the hunter tries to teach his new friend terrestrial words and concepts. The hunter explains, "The house is a big wooden thing ... that you stay inside at night or when it rains." "Why?" she asks. "To keep from getting wet." "To keep from getting wet?" the mermaid says despairingly.

The mermaid and the hunter become a family when the hunter takes a bear cub from its mother to live with them as a son. "The bear's table manners were bad. But so were the mermaid's--especially as she couldn't resist throwing the bear pieces of fish." Having a bear around seems perfectly normal, but not quite a complete family, so eventually the hunter captures a spotted baby lynx. When the lynx brings home not another dead partridge, but a little boy, the delicate, playful family dynamics change again. This book of low-key epiphanies is packed with delightful, illuminating, often unexpected comparisons of the ocean world and the land world most non-mermaids wouldn't have considered. Enhanced by a beautiful design and gorgeous illustrations by Maurice Sendak, this book is perfect for any reader--young or old--ready for a bit of gentle philosophy with a decided twinkle. (All ages) --Karin Snelson

Snow-White and the Seven Dwarfs (Sunburst Book)

Jacob Grimm, Wilhelm K. Grimm, Nancy Eckholm Burkert

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 10 Average rating: 4.5 of 5

Editorial Review:

"Mirror, mirror on the wall, Who is the fairest of us all?" repeatedly asks the Queen, Snow White's stepmother. She always gets the answer she wants, until Snow White turns seven, and the mirror must truthfully answer, "Snow White." At the news, the Queen turns yellow and green with envy and commands the huntsman to kill Snow White and bring her "lung and liver as a token." Thus begins another enchanting fairy tale from the Brothers Grimm!

Kirkus Reviews called this collaboration between Randall and Nancy Eckholm Burkert "a sort of legend even before its time of publication." Jarrell also wrote The Bat-Poet and The Animal Family, a Newbery Honor Book. Jarrell retained the Grimm (and grim) ending to the tale, as the stepmother is forced to dance to her death. Burkert's illustrations are magical, light-filled creations that more than earn the book its Caldecott Honor Book status. This delightful book's extra-large format showcases the fabulously detailed illustrations, alternating two facing pages of art with two pages of straight text. This is an unforgettable interpretation of a well-loved story. (Ages 6 to 9)

The Juniper Tree: And Other Tales from Grimm

Jacob Grimm, Wilhelm K. Grimm

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 5 Average rating: 5.0 of 5

Lost in translation no longer 5 out of 5 stars.
8 of 10 people found this review helpful.

After hearing Sendak speak of the tragic fate that has befallen the fairy tale, I immediately went online in search of the Juniper Tree collection, a seventies-era translation of Grimm's fairy tales that professed to be true to the originals.

According to Sendak, modern adaptations of fairy tales lack the vigor and violence of the originals, which themselves were adaptation of the spoken-word. Call it Disney-fication, but new translations seemed to candy-coat old tales into generic rubbish. Sendak said that he took on this commission in order to rejuvenate the fairy-tale genre. And I can only find success in the venture. The new translation adds spice to fairy tales that I have heard countless times, in addition to adding many more obscure fairy tales to a reader's collection. And Sendak's beautiful black and white illustrations certainly don't hurt the package. His characteristic drawings add life and excitement to the written word.

Definitely get this copy instead of any cheesy new version of a fairy tale. It's not as violent/different from normal fairy tale editions as I expected, but the change is significant enought to have warranted this translation. And sure, there isn't a Sendak illustration on every page, but kids need something to look forward to in a book, don't they?

Editorial Review:

A one-volume hardcover edition for the 30th anniversary

Originally published as a two-volume set thirty years ago, The Juniper Tree is distinguished first by the selection of stories. Lore Segal and Maurice Sendak have jointly culled 27 from
the 210 in the complete collection, and their contents page presents a fascinating critical statement. The translations are another distinguishing quality of the Segal/Sendak edition. Both translators have been painstakingly faithful to the German texts; they have not cut, “retold,” or bowdlerized. In addition, Segal and Jarrell bring to their renderings of Grimm the grace and precision that are characteristic of their own original prose. This must-have edition for every home library is jacketed and cloth-bound and has a bookmark ribbon.

Fly by Night

Randall Jarrell

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 4 Average rating: 5.0 of 5

Editorial Review:

"At night David can fly. In the daytime he can't. In the daytime he doesn't even remember that he can. But at night, after his mother has put him to bed, he wakes up, sometimes.... It isn't flying exactly, but floating--he floats in the air." As he hovers over his parents, he can see their dreams, round and yellow, just over their heads. He can faintly see his dog Reddy's furry dream, too, before floating outside. In the moonlight, he can see mice dancing, how the vegetable garden looks in black and white, and a flock of sleeping sheep: "All of them except one are dreaming they're eating; that one is dreaming he's asleep." Throughout Randall Jarrell's dreamy, evocative prose poem we follow David in his nocturnal drifting. We hear the tender bedtime story of an owl to its owlets, until the owl--with "two big silent strokes of its wings sails away"--flies with the boy back to his house. There, he goes to sleep and wakes up to his loving mother, remembering nothing. Maurice Sendak's illustrations, which are never intrusive, capture the quiet moodiness of this piece--the final collaboration of Jarrell and Sendak before Jarrell's death in 1965. A starred review in School Library Journal says, "Jarrell writes with simple force and grace about the essential loneliness of life, but above all he is writing about love--family love, especially, which is shown to be strong and constant." (All ages) --Karin Snelson