Guleesh And King France's Daughter

Features of Guleesh and King France's Daughter

Product Description A simple peasant boy marries a beautiful princess after rescuing her from a cruel fate at the hands of wicked fairies From School Library Journal ea. vol: illus. by Henry Underhill. unpaged. (Magic Lantern Bks.). Philomel. 1986. PSm $11.95. Kindergarten-Grade 3 The raison d'etre for these books seems to be to display Underhill's illustrations: they are full-color reproductions taken from the original magic lantern slides painted on glass in 1891. As such, they are mildly interesting in and of themselves. The illustrations maintain a transparent quality that adds to their old-fashioned look. Drakestail is the more successful effort at picturing a story. Underhill shows off Drakestail as a very finely dressed characterruffled shirt, plumed hat, and all. The characters who travel along with Drakestail (in his gullet) are charmingly literal, and the illustrations have a lot of impact. The illustrations in Guleesh are pretty dreadfulhorses that should be flying through the air look as if they had been glued to a backdrop; dancing fairies seem to be playing statues. Other illustrations are hopelessly sentimental and do not give much oomph to the story. Unfortunately, Philip, as an adapter, isn't long on any oomph of his own, offering awkward phrasing and jarringly modern colloquialisms that jolt readers into the present, which is especially inappropriate if these Magic Lantern Tales'' are to be enjoyed as pieces of the past. Philip follows Brian Alderson's translation from The Red Fairy Book (Viking, 1978), but not carefully enough. The version of Guleesh in Joseph Jacobs' Celtic Fairy Tales (Dover, 1968) is also preferable. Philip pares the story down to plot (seemingly to fit the illustrations), and although his tone is much more well-suited to the production-at-hand, it does not make the story come alive. One is tempted to label the series apples and orangespainted magic lantern slides are not illustrations for a book. As it is, the books are interesting merely as curiosities. There are better places to look for the stories. Christina Olson, Beverly Hills Public LibraryCopyright 1987 Reed Business Information, Inc.