Rumpelstiltskin

Adиle Ashby, a library consultant, is the former editor of Canadian Materials for Schools and Libraries.

Harris is a well-known Canadian author who has produced a series of
successful novels and picture books—e.g., Four Seasons for Toby. Ricci
is a relative newcomer to the scene, but his contribution to Kenneth
Oppel’s Cosimo Cat was greeted with acclaim. Oxford University Press,
known for the high quality of its children’s books, has teamed them
for this retelling of the famous Brothers Grimm folk tale of the
miller’s daughter who became a queen. The story elements have been
shifted somewhat in this version. Here the king is motivated more by a
desire to punish the miller for his boasting than by greed, and it is
the miller, not one of the messengers sent to collect names, who comes
across Rumpelstiltskin in the woods and learns his name. Despite these
changes, the text is smooth and the illustrations are magnificent. Ricci
has reached back into the late Middle Ages for inspiration. His pictures
are framed in gold, and each glows like the metal the miller’s
daughter must spin. A white cat appears in almost every double-page
spread, and readers will have fun finding it. While there have been many
successful versions of the tale (Galdone’s, Zelinsky’s, and the 1990
collaboration by Alison Sage with pictures by Russia’s Gennady
Spirin), this Canadian contribution is among the best.