★"Colored in bold reds, blacks, and grays, Yoon's angular mixed-media prints highlight the soldier's stoicism and the perils he faces." — STARRED REVIEW, Publishers Weekly
"Hans Christian Andersen’s iconic tale of love, loyalty, and loss, The Steadfast Tin Soldier, is retold by Joohee Yoon using classic printmaking artistry with an avant-garde edge. In gray scale with vivid scarlet splashes, the story of the soldier and the ballerina unfolds, maintaining all the tragic dignity of the original while infusing a fresh and thrilling air of suspense and emotion, ideal for those experiencing the tin soldier’s journey for the first time or the fiftieth."—Foreword Reviews
"…absolutely stunning.” —Sally Morgan, The Curious Reader (Glen Rock, NJ)
"Yoon faithfully retells Andersen’s literary fairy tale in sober prose and dazzling illustrations, created by hand drawing, relief printing, and computer techniques. The story of the one-legged toy soldier who falls in love with a paper ballerina and accidentally embarks on a series of adventures certainly has its grim moments, and Yoon’s art—with its layered patterns and textures, limited palette (red, black, and gray), and dynamic perspectives—revels in these. ... Yoon’s art, with its intentionally static feel despite all those eye-catching patterns, evokes the heart of Andersen’s tale: the tragedy of the soldier’s steadfastness and enforced passivity."—Katrina Hedeen, The Horn Book ”I’m such a sucker for everything that [JooHee Yoon] makes, and this didn’t disappoint. She perfectly achieves a captivating story using black, white, red, and silver in graphic shapes, texture, and a beautiful style.” —The Reading Ninja
The Steadfast Tin Soldier is a literary fairy tale by Hans Christian Andersen about a tin soldier's love for a paper ballerina. On his birthday, a boy receives a set of 25 toy soldiers all cast from one old tin spoon and arrays them on a table top. One soldier stands on a single leg because, as he was the last one cast, there was not enough metal to make him whole. Nearby, the soldier spies a pretty paper ballerina with a spangle on her sash. She, too, is standing on one leg, and the soldier falls in love. That night, a goblin among the toys in the form of a jack-in-the-box, who also loves the ballerina, angrily warns the soldier to take his eyes off her, but the soldier ignores him.
The next day, the soldier falls from a windowsill (presumably the work of the goblin) and lands in the street. Two boys find the soldier, place him in a paper boat, and set him sailing in the gutter. The boat and its passenger wash into a storm drain, where a rat demands the soldier pay a toll.
Sailing on, the boat is washed into a canal, where the tin soldier is swallowed by a fish. When this fish is caught and cut open, the tin soldier finds himself once again on the table top before the ballerina. Inexplicably, the boy throws the tin soldier into the fire, which is most likely the work of the jack-in-the-box goblin. A wind blows the ballerina into the fire with him; she is consumed by it. The maid cleans the fireplace in the morning and finds that the soldier has melted into a little tin heart, along with the ballerina's spangle, which is now burned as black as coal.
The Steadfast Tin Soldier is a literary fairy tale by Hans Christian Andersen about a tin soldier's love for a paper ballerina. On his birthday, a boy receives a set of 25 toy soldiers all cast from one old tin spoon and arrays them on a table top. One soldier stands on a single leg because, as he was the last one cast, there was not enough metal to make him whole. Nearby, the soldier spies a pretty paper ballerina with a spangle on her sash. She, too, is standing on one leg, and the soldier falls in love. That night, a goblin among the toys in the form of a jack-in-the-box, who also loves the ballerina, angrily warns the soldier to take his eyes off her, but the soldier ignores him.
The next day, the soldier falls from a windowsill (presumably the work of the goblin) and lands in the street. Two boys find the soldier, place him in a paper boat, and set him sailing in the gutter. The boat and its passenger wash into a storm drain, where a rat demands the soldier pay a toll.
Sailing on, the boat is washed into a canal, where the tin soldier is swallowed by a fish. When this fish is caught and cut open, the tin soldier finds himself once again on the table top before the ballerina. Inexplicably, the boy throws the tin soldier into the fire, which is most likely the work of the jack-in-the-box goblin. A wind blows the ballerina into the fire with him; she is consumed by it. The maid cleans the fireplace in the morning and finds that the soldier has melted into a little tin heart, along with the ballerina's spangle, which is now burned as black as coal.
