The Shooting of Dan McGrew - Softcover

Service, Robert W

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1567920659 ISBN 13: 9781567920659

Publisher: David R. Godine, Publisher, 1995

Synopsis

A narrative poem set in the Yukon describing the shoot-out in a saloon between a trapper and the man who stole his girl.

About this title

About the Author

Robert Service was born in England and earned a worldwide reputation as a poet of the Arctic. He died in Europe in 1958.

From School Library Journal

Grade 6 Up Ballads have strong rhythms, and the texts of such epic tales as Dan McGrew (and Harrison's The Cremation of Sam McGee Greenwillow, 1987) are humane in their exposition of our heroic qualities and artful in the choice and composition of language. This poem is an anecdote from the days of the gold camps in Alaska. Service, writing in 1907, played up the melodrama using all of the props of a sort of Last Chance Saloon for his stage. Harrison employs opaque paints in relatively untextured areas frequently outlined thickly with contrasting color lines. There's a hint of Lautrec's posters at times. Saloon interiors provide sufficient details to draw readers in. And the impressionistic rainbow-like swirls of blues, purples, and yellows carry them through the boozy dream-cum-nightmares of a miner's psyche as he finds a return to ``civilization'' more than he can handle. The design in uncluttered: the pristine glossy white left-hand pages house the verses set in a large serifed typeface, and opposite are the black-framed pictures. Words and pictures make a strong pair. A plausible fantasy, attractive in its trim narrative setting. Kenneth Marantz, Art Education Department, Ohio State University, Columbus
Copyright 1988 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Edition details

• Publisher: David R. Godine, Publisher
• Publication date: 1995
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 1567920659
• ISBN 13: 9781567920659
• Binding: Paperback
• Illustrator: Harrison Ted
• Number of pages: 48