The Wild Swans

The themes or classroom connection might be best suited for a fairytale unit or perhaps one on birds because the swans appear on almost every page. I'd never read this fairytale before so I was surprised at almost every turn with this story and most of those turns were very bizarre and

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random-seeming. It makes me realize how random most fairytales must seem if you've never read them before. The biggest emotional impact for me was the message of standing up for your family and family connectedness, how it's more important to save your siblings than save yourself sometimes.

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Like most fairy tales, there's a bit of weirdness in this one - most notably, the fact that the king just picked up a mute girl and married her. Like, did she consent to this? How could he know - she wasn't able to communicate with anybody! (If she had been able to, she would've been able to also

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let them know why she was so obsessed with nettles.)

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Here is a classic tale by Han Christian Anderson. Elisa must first find her 11 brothers who have been turned into swans, then make them human again with her bravery, perseverance, and strong belief.

While I certainly agree with conuly about the weirdness quotient in this story, I also find the heroine's unswerving devotion to her task strangely compelling. If you don't know the story, I recommend reading it. It'll stick with you.

The Wild Swans, illustrated by Anne Yvonne Gilbert.

Since the time I was a child, I have always had a deep and abiding love of folk and fairy-tales, and have taken great pleasure over the years, as both a reader and collector, in comparing the different artistic approaches used by various

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illustrators, when undertaking to interpret the same stories. Sometimes - as with the Isadora, Archipowa and Pinkney versions of The Little Match Girl - I find that a number of different editions all have equal appeal for me. At other times - with Edward Gorey's Rumpelstiltskin, for instance, or Evelyn Andreas' Cinderella - the edition of my youth retains its hold on my imagination, always coming first in my affections. And at still other times - as with Angela Barrett's Snow White - I have stumbled, as an adult, across some new edition that has become my favorite.

But although I have read countless folk and fairy-tale retellings, and keep an ever-growing list of artists whose work in this vein I admire, I do not think - with the exception of Vladyslav Yerko's superb The Snow Queen - that I have ever come across a book which so perfectly captures the wonder and terror, the beauty and cruelty, and the dream-like vividness of the fairy-tale world, as this edition of Hans Christian Andersen's The Wild Swans, retold by Naomi Lewis and illustrated by Anne Yvonne Gilbert, has done.

The narrative flows smoothly, but it is the artwork - Gilbert's beautiful artwork, by turns dreamy and sharp, so poignantly expressive and tender - that make this a fairy-tale masterpiece! The portrait of the wicked stepmother whispering her falsehoods in the king's ear, or kissing the poisoned toads she intends to use against the heroine, evoke true anxiety in the reader, who immediately recognizes that evil is afoot. The beautiful depiction of Elisa reunited with her brothers - all gathered in a group, and lovingly touching one another, as if to make sure that they are truly together again - has the power to move anyone who has ever loved brother or sister. The moment in which the king secretly watches Elisa, wanting to believe no wrong, but beginning to fear the worst, will have the reader wishing that she could but speak! And of course, the scenes in which Elisa goes to meet her death, surrounded by an angry mob, only to find salvation at the last (through speech!) will send shivers down the spine of any person who knows - as we all do, on some level - that justice is not always done.

It is difficult to imagine a more pitch-perfect interpretation of the story, with all its cruelty and injustice, loyalty and love. There is power here, and Anne Yvonne Gilbert had tapped into the heart of it, transforming us from mere readers to witnesses. For that, all true fairy-tale lovers owe her a debt of gratitude.

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