Shrunken Treasures: Literary Classics, Short, Sweet, and Silly - Hardcover

Nash, Scott

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0763669725 ISBN 13: 9780763669720

Publisher: Candlewick, 2016

Synopsis

Nine weighty literary classics are transformed into delectable morsels with Scott Nash’s playful versification and whimsical illustration.

Can’t stomach all of Frankenstein? Lacking the strength to read The Odyssey? Don’t have 1,001 nights to get through Scheherazade’s ordeal? Never fear, Shrunken Treasures are here! Nine of the world’s best-known stories and books have been reduced, like slowly simmered cherries, to tart and tasty mouthfuls. Lighthearted verse turns Moby-Dick into a simple nursery song. Outrageous color makes even gloomy Hamlet seem like fun. Riotous images transform Jane Eyre’s ordeal into a whirlwind adventure. The Metamorphosis, Remembrance of Things Past, Don Quixote, and others have all been delivered from dense duty to delightful ditty in Scott Nash’s collection of hallowed classics, featuring notes about the original texts at the end.

About this title

About the Author

Scott Nash is the creator of the illuminated middle-grade novel The High-Skies Adventures of Blue Jay the Pirate and the early reader Tuff Fluff: The Case of Duckie's Missing Brain. He is also the illustrator of Saturday Night at the Dinosaur Stomp by Carol Diggory Shields and many other children’s books. He lives on Peaks Island off the coast of Portland, Maine.

Reviews

Gr 3 Up-Young readers are introduced to nine classic stories the author claims to have put in a "versizer" and shrunk to lively verse and humorous illustrations. "No sissy was Ulysses:/He journeyed ‘cross the sea/ And risked his life/To find his wife/The sweet Penelope" is the first of seven reduced verses retelling the ancient Greek epic the Odyssey. Interspersed are amusing depictions of Cyclops, the mermaids, and sailing scenes from Ulysses's journey. Not all stories use the same style of verse, as Jane Eyre can be sung to the tune of "Three Blind Mice," and Proust's Remembrance of Things Past (a voluminous work) has become a simple haiku. Other works include Moby-Dick, Frankenstein, Hamlet, A Thousand and One Nights, Don Quixote, and The Metamorphosis. Nash, well known for his "Flat Stanley" illustrations, employs a similar cartoon style here, including a drawing of himself next to his googly-eyed characters stacked in the "versizer" machine. Adults familiar with the original classics will be entertained by puns, such as Hamlet drawn as a great Dane (dog) who, in pawing up the garden, digs up the King's ghost. An appended section gives a bit of backstory and context for the original works and authors and tells how Nash chose to retell each tale, based on his memories. VERDICT A lighthearted and clever rendering of some classics young readers may be inclined to read later on.-Vicki Reutter, State University of New York at Cortlandα(c) Copyright 2011. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.

Edition details

• Publisher: Candlewick
• Publication date: 2016
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0763669725
• ISBN 13: 9780763669720
• Binding: Hardcover
• Illustrator: Nash Scott
• Number of pages: 40