Magic Well - Hardcover

Silverman

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 067167885X ISBN 13: 9780671678852

Publisher: Simon & Schuster Children's Publishing, 1989

Synopsis

Lured to the fairy world by the promise of a playmate, a young girl soon tires of her new life and tries to find a way to escape the fairies' power and return home to her mother.

About this title

Reviews

Grade 2-4-- Young Janet, lured away from her sleeping mother, slides down a forest well with the Fairy Queen into the fairy realm. After time passes, Janet longs for home, and tries to engineer her release. She first leaves clues for her mother, and then finds a way to instruct her to pull Janet away from the nocturnal forest Fairy Ride, and hold her tight through a series of shape-changes, ending with a figure of red-hot iron. This story of redemption through steadfast love has strong traditional antecedents, as in the ballad "Tamlin" or Howard Pyle's more recent King Stork (Little, 1986) . This tale is wordier and slower-paced, fattened out with details of home life, conversation, emblematic devices, and a tendency to overexplain. The stylized composition of the pictures freezes motion on the page. Together, the static quality of the figures, the rich color, and the use and placement of details produce a feeling of pageantry, particularly in the outdoor scenes, in keeping with the story's olden locus. The fixed feeling of the illustrations, while hinting at the mother's solid constancy, makes for curious dynamics when paired with episodes of dramatic change. --Karen Litton, London Public Libraries, Ontario, Canada
Copyright 1989 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Edition details

• Publisher: Simon & Schuster Children's Publishing
• Publication date: 1989
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 067167885X
• ISBN 13: 9780671678852
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1