Bo the Brave

by Bethan Woollvin

Overview

A brave little girl learns who the real monsters are in this brilliantly funny original fairy tale from New York Times Best Illustrated Book-winner Bethan Woollvin.

Bo wants to be just like her brothers and capture a fearsome monster, but Bo is small—too small to catch a monster. Or so her brothers say. Luckily, Bo isn't one to take no for an answer, and so she sets off on a quest to catch a monster of her own. Can she defeat the furious griffin, conquer the hideous kraken, and triumph over the monstrous dragon? Or are the real monsters lurking closer than she thinks?

Author-illustrator Bethan Woollvin, creator of the New York Times Best Illustrated Book Little Red, delivers an original fairy tale with a spirited female protagonist, a vibrant medieval backdrop, and a clever twist ending.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781682635322
Publisher:	Candlewick Press
Publication date:	01/17/2023
Pages:	32
Product dimensions:	9.42(w) x 11.00(h) x 0.16(d)
Age Range:	5 - 9 Years

About the Author

Bethan Woollvin graduated from the Cambridge School of Art with a First Class Degree in Illustration. She has since made a name for herself with dark and witty twists on traditional stories. Her fractured fairy tale, Little Red, was named a New York Times Best Illustrated Children's Book. Bethan lives in England.

Editorial Reviews

"Bo, with her face-filling eyes, resembles Woollvin's other fearless female protagonists; together, they seem to be rewriting the rules one fairy tale at a time." —Publishers Weekly

"Striking. . . [a] winning alternative to the traditional monster-slaying adventure story." —The Horn Book Magazine

★ "A great book to delve into what heroes are made of. Highly recommended for elementary libraries." —School Library Journal, Starred Review

"Magnificent endpapers. . . As always, Woollvin wields a simple yet stunning color palette. . . Bo herself is a headstrong heroine, bearing a bow, net, sword, and, most important, confidence, that young readers will enjoy. A fun and colorful gateway into the world of medieval fantasy." —Booklist

From the Publisher

2019-12-18
A little sister follows her two older brothers out into the big world of monster-hunting.

Bo lives with Erik and Ivar in a castle. The boys, lofty hunters setting out to catch an unspecified monster, scoff at Bo's request to come along. Undeterred, she sneaks out of the castle after they're gone "to catch a monster of her own." She encounters a series of creatures—griffin, kraken, dragon—each of which she initially assumes is a monster but realizes is not. Bo learns quickly that the unfamiliar creatures (one of whom is a parent and therefore explicitly adult) not only are not monsters, but are so harmless that she can let them literally carry her. Being polite, offering directions, or needing a child's help are the signals that immediately prove their trustworthiness, which may horrify safety-minded adults thinking about stranger danger. Child readers won't care, but nor will they find vigor in Bo's tale. The prose is tepid: "These creatures are helpful and nice and caring. We shouldn't be hunting them!" The illustrations, done in gray, pink, teal, and dull orange, have a flattened perspective that gives this "land of mountains and forests" a compressed, two-dimensional sameness to each spread. Limited palettes are sometimes gems, but this one—lacking saturation changes or compositional zest—only continues the sameness as pages turn. Football-shaped eyes barely vary with expression; the humans are white as paper.

Here be no dragons. (Picture book. 3-6)

Kirkus Reviews