Iron Man

British Poet Laureate Ted Hughes’s classic novella The Iron Giant has seen a lot of changes and adaptations over the years. It was originally titled The Iron Man: A Children’s Story in Five Nights, but that was changed in the 1968 American version to avoid confusion with the comic book Iron

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Man. Fans of Brad Bird’s (The Incredibles, Ratatouille) 1999 film version may initially be put off by the difference between the stories; gone are the Cold War allegories and the development of friendship between young boy Hogarth and the titular giant that made the movie version so poignant. They will likely also be confused by the cover photo, which matches the animation style of the movie. Within the novel, however, are illustrations by Andrew Davidson, who first contributed to the book in 1985. Still, readers should enjoy the wonder and fantasy of the tale and will likely root for the Iron Giant to triumph regardless.
Hughes’s story focuses on the giant, whose appearance matches his name and who begins his journey by stumbling, crashing, falling to pieces and reassembling himself all within the first chapter. After literally pulling himself together, he inadvertently terrorizes a small British town by munching away on all their metal: barbed wire fences and farm equipment alike. Eventually the townspeople find peace with the giant and give him a way to quench his hunger for metal, but soon this is interrupted by the appearance of a giant--even more giant than the Iron Giant--dragon from outer space. The dragon is set on world-wide destruction and consumption, and only the Iron Giant can save the people of Earth from this evil.
The text of The Iron Giant is simplistic and accessible for children just transitioning to reading chapter books. It is a modern fairy tale at it’s finest, simultaneously highly imaginative and yet very familiar.

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One of my favorite animated films is The Iron Giant so when I discovered that it was based off of a book by the same name...well I had to read it didn't I? Ted Hughes, late poet laureate, created something truly special with this book. It's incredibly short (79 pages to be exact) but so much is

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crammed within those pages that it spoke more to me than some books three times that length. It is the tale of an Iron Giant/Man who arrives in a small town and begins wreaking havoc among the farmers by eating all of their metal machinery. At first, the farmers believe he is a monster and they trap him in a pit. However, when he escapes a little boy named Hogarth speaks upon the Iron Giant's behalf and comes up with a compromise. For a time, there is peace. And then (here's where the movie deviates) a creature born from a star lands on Australia. This creature is gigantic and shaped like a dragon and it demands to be fed living things. The people of earth decide to go to war against this creature instead. (Remember this is a "children's" book and it has already tackled prejudice (the farmers against the Iron Giant) and now it's taking human beings predilection for warfare head-on.) The weapons unleashed are unparalleled in their ferocity and yet the creature only smiles. It delivers an ultimatum and the people of earth are terrified. Once again, Hogarth (and yet just like a children's book to put the power in the hands of a child) has an idea. He asks the Iron Giant for help. A challenge of strength is issued which the dragon creature accepts.

I don't want to give away the ending. In fact, I feel slightly bad having said as much as I already have. I do hope you'll check this book out. It's worth your time (it took me no time at all to read it), I promise. It's lauded as an exceptionally brilliant read for a reason. There is so much to be gleaned from the story.

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A 1001 CBYMRBYGU. One day, an Iron Giant arrives on earth. He eats barbed wire and tractors and plows, causing problems for the farmers. Finally, the farmers devise a trap for the Iron Giant and they successfully capture him. Then an even more terrible creature arrives from space and the Iron Giant

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must come to the rescue.

“The peoples of the world got together. If they fed it, how could they ever satisfy it? It would never be full, and every new day it would be as hungry as ever. How can you feed a beast the size of Australia? Australia is a vast land, all the countries of Europe will fit easily into Australia. The monster’s stomach alone must be the size of Germany. No, they would not feed it.”

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A great kids' sci-fi book written with a mythic structure. I have a 1988 Harper Trophy edition and it has adorable artwork. Note that the book has only the vaguest similarity to the movie, they aren't really the same thing at all.

Can't agree with echobrain who trashes it. Along with the [Tiger's Bones] this has Ted Hughes' unmistakable word power. I agree its top-heavy in that the opening chapter is the best but I have dramatised this work with 5 year olds many times and they find it totally compelling, for all its being

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like two stories mashed together. Its a classic.

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Cars,trucks are disappearing,an Iron giant is walking around! No one can stop it, or can they? This book takes place on farms in 2000, and is an action story.

Cars, trucks are disappearing, an Iron Giant is walking around! No one can stop it, or can they? This book takes place on farms in 2000, and is an action story.

The Iron Giant, in the futre, of a town...sounds wierd,well it is. But how do we get rid of him? This book would appeal to peolple who like mysteries and fiction.

Hughes, Ted. (1968) The Iron Giant. New York: Yearling.
This story is about a giant that comes out of the ocean and makes his way into a farm. The farmers that live there are angry because this giant has eaten all of their metal and they need to figure out a way to get rid of him. Th fantasy

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elements of this story are the giant himself and the fact that he has to battle a dragon to save the people. This story is not very believable, as it begins with the iron giant coming out of the ocean. The plot is very original but the ending seems a bit too much and very unbelievable as the giant becomes a singer after defending the people from the dragon.

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I'm really not overly fond of this book. It kind of feels like two different stories smushed together in a way that doesn't entirely work.

Fantacy book where a young boy saves the world from the Iron Giant. My son loves this book. There is nothing like being a child hero.

This book is about how a great iron being comes across a human being and their adventure.

Hughes, T. (1968). The Iron giant. New York: Harper Row.
Grades 3 through 5

An iron giant arrives on Earth to cause havoc among a small English village. After a rough beginning, the mysterious visitor and the villagers develop a peaceful relationship mainly due to the intervention of Hogarth, a boy

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who concocts a plan to save village from the giant. He gives the metal creature access to the scrap yard, satiating his enormous appetite. Then, a mysterious celestial body approaches Earth, giving birth to a black dragon the size of Australia. The dragon threatens to destroy Earth if his demands for food are not met. Hogarth asks for the iron giant’s help, and his witty plan helps him beat the dragon. The iron giant becomes a hero, and the dragon fulfill his true calling—making music that turns humans from war-hungry people to loving, peaceful creatures.

The Iron giant is a strange and whimsical story. The reader never learns the origin or motivation of the iron giant. There is no explanation to justify his existence or why the audience should accept him. The plot is also strange—a dragon born from a star come to threaten Earth, and the iron giant must intervene to save humanity. Somehow, as the story goes by, readers move past all the unanswered questions to enjoy a story about acceptance, wit, and forgiveness. The book has an odd but effective anti-war message, and the characters conquer the audience by the end of the story. Zimmer’s black-and-white illustrations are a beautiful complement to this strangely warm tale.

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A mysterious, fearsome giant, made of iron, walks out of nowhere to the top of a cliff. No one knows where he had come from or how he was made. When he steps off the cliff, he crashes and breaks into a hundred pieces, but over time all the pieces fit themselves back together again. Soon afterwards

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a farmer’s son named Hogarth is fishing in a stream and at evening sees a giant black figure, bigger than a house. No one, except his own father, believes Hogarth at first, but when reports begin to come in about missing tractors, plows, and other farm machinery made of steel and iron, everyone decides that something needs to be done.
A big hole is dug near where the Iron Giant had gone back into the sea and is covered with branches, straw, and soil, with an old truck on the nearby hill as bait to trap the monster. At first, he does not come, but eventually he does fall in and is covered with a mound of dirt. However, the following spring, he digs out of the trap and starts eating all the barbed wire for miles around, as well as hinges which he tears off gates, tin cans which he finds in ditches, tractors, cars, and trucks. The farmers talk about calling in the army. But Hogarth has a plan. What is it? And when a giant space lizard the size of Australia comes to Earth from Orion and threatens to destroy the planet by eating all living things, is there anything that Hogarth and the Iron Giant can do to save mankind?
We saw the 1999 Warner Brothers animated feature film The Iron Giant, and our boys really liked it, but I didn’t know until a few years ago that the movie was based on a book, originally published in England as The Iron Man, although the two are very different in many respects. The book is quite spare, consisting of only five chapters, so it is an easy read for middle grade students. There is one mention of the stars being billions and trillions and zillions of years old, but it is also said that the people wept and prayed to God to save them from the space lizard. No bad language occurs. Author Ted Hughes was poet laureate of England from 1984 until his death in 1998. The book is said to be “a powerful tribute to peace on earth—and in all the universe,” so some might see in it a little anti-war propaganda, but the fact is that no reasonable person really wants war and that everyone hopes and strives for peace. There is a sequel, The Iron Woman, describing retribution based on environmental themes related to pollution.

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This adaptation of Ted Hughe's classic, "The Iron Man" was collected along with new illustrations by Laura Carlin. This is one of the most wonderous features of this edition. Carlin adds not only interesting illustrations, but also alters the layout of the book to be more interactive and help

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explain the ideas going on in the book. When the space monster comes from the sky, there are cut holes that increase with each page. When the Iron Giant emerges from a crack in the ground, the pages open from the middle, exposing two new pages of illustration and two new pages of text. The illustrations only appear when necessary, as most of the book remain as text. The text is also split into chapters, which makes it easy to read the book at your own pace, as it would be a very long book without chapter divisions. These divisions also make sense textually, rather than being spaced a certain number of pages. For the overlying theme of never judging a book by it's cover, the story and illustrations of Hogarth and his friend the Giant perfectly relate that to the reader. I would warn those who have only seen the movie that this story is very different. Where the movie focuses on Hogarth befriending and protecting the Giant, this book focuses more on the town learning to accept the Giant and the Giant learning to stand up for his new home.

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We had this tale read to us at primary school and not long after I borrowed the book to read it myself. Think this would've been in 1985, though could've been a year either way.

I remember thinking it was cool when the Iron Man fell of a cliff, smashed to pieces, yet managed to reassemble

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himself.

Also remember him being tricked into a tight spot by humans who later seek his help when the space dragon (believe that this is one of several alternate choices for the creature's name) lands on Earth.

Whether or not "The Iron Man" would appeal to me as an adult I can't say, but it feels appropriate to rate the book five stars considering that I borrowed it after the teacher had read it to my class.

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Iron Man by Ted Hughes
This science fiction story is about a mysterious creature that comes to some farms by the sea. It is a giant machine made of metal. It likes to eat metal things like fences and farm machinery. The farmers are angry with this iron giant until they find a metal scrap yard for

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him to eat. Then suddenly a new threat comes from the sky. Will the iron giant protect the people of the world?
I think this is a unique story. It is interesting the author chooses a alien robot as a character. I think it is interesting that he eats metal and the world learns to like him.
I would use this story with 3rd and 4th grade students. I would use this as an example of what science fiction stories are like. I would ask the students to read the story. I would have the students make a list of reasons this story is in the science fiction genre.

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Have just finished reading this to my six-year-old. I had feared it would be full of flowery language and the sort of content a young child couldn't possibly grasp. I was pleasantly surprised - and impressed - by the simplicity of the language, and at the same time by the direction and variety of

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the storyline. Perfect for young children!

Takes me back to the time when, a few years ago, my older child came home from school and informed me that the next term's topic was the Iron Man. Never having heard of the book at the time I assumed she must have misheard and we spent the entire weekend researching the Isle of Man.

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