Sylvia Long's Thumbelina

by Sylvia Long

Overview

This "faithful retelling" of the Hans Christian Andersen tale is "a jewel box of a work whose pages invite lingering" (Publishers Weekly).
 
From bestselling and multiple award-winning artist Sylvia Long comes an exquisite version of Hans Christian Andersen's beloved tale about a thumb-size girl and her larger-than-life adventures. Jewel-toned paintings depict the story's settings, from light and airy meadows to Mole's dark and dismal underground home—while whimsical details bring the classic cast of characters to life and make this story-time favorite a visual feast.
 
"Her watercolors bring out the wonder of the natural world with an almost emotional intensity." —The New York Times Book Review 
 
"The illustrator has made a lush and vivid world for her Thumbelina to inhabit." —Kirkus Reviews

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781452128627
Publisher:	Chronicle Books
Publication date:	03/22/2023
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
Pages:	1
File size:	4 MB
Age Range:	1 - 12 Years

About the Author

Sylvia Long is the award-winning illustrator of many books for children, including Sylvia Long's Mother Goose and An Egg Is Quiet. Her detailed paintings are inspired by her love of animals and the outdoors. She lives in Scottsdale, Arizona.

Editorial Reviews

Long hews very closely to the Hans Christian Andersen tale, in which a woman longing for a child finds a tiny one in a flower grown from an enchanted barley seed given to her by a fairy. Thumbelina, as she is called, is abducted by a toad but rescued by fish and a butterfly, found ugly by a group of beetles and fed through the bitter winter by a mouse in exchange for telling stories and keeping things tidy. The mouse, however, wants to marry Thumbelina off to her neighbor the mole, who never sees the sun. It is Thumbelina's kindness that saves her; she nurses an injured swallow over the winter, and he in turn saves her, flying her to a warm land where she finds a prince "scarcely larger than herself," who marries her at once. While Thumbelina and the prince look like young adolescents-and earthbound ones at that-rather than fairies or sprites, the fish, birds and, especially, flowers are gorgeous ink-and-watercolor images. The illustrator has made a lush and vivid world for her Thumbelina to inhabit. (Fairy tale. 5-9)

Kirkus Reviews

SCHOOL LIBRARY JOURNAL
"...[C]hildren girls in particular will undoubtedly delight in the happy ending where a gatefold reveals the flower-filled wedding of Thumbelina and her prince."

PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
A jewel box of a work whose pages invite lingering.

KIRKUS REVIEWS
The illustrator has made a lush and vivid world for her Thumbelina to inhabit.

THE NEW YORK TIMES BOOK REVIEW
Long is best known for illustrating the spectacularly beautiful picture book An Egg Is Quiet by Dianna Aston. Her watercolors bring out the wonder of the natural world with an almost emotional intensity. Several spreads in her Thumbelina are vertical, requiring children to turn them to get a proper look, emphasizing that the book is as much a beautiful object as a story to get lost in.

From the Publisher