As she has with previous interpretations of classics, Zwerger (Alice in Wonderland) works from Bell's faithful translation of Andersen's text, with no happily ever after. Here the mermaid must watch her beloved prince marry another, knowing that she herself will die the following day. Zwerger's exquisite watercolors bring to life the mermaid's world. At a window in the castle of her father, the sea king, the mermaid gazes out into the blue-green distance, wondering what life above must be like; while fish dart in and out, she pets one absently. Watery meadows of jade and turquoise suggest empty silence and foreshadow the mermaid's sacrifice to the sea witch in exchange for a human form, the heroine must trade her voice, "a lovelier voice than anyone on earth or in the sea." Zwerger represents the mermaid's shunning of her undersea home with a depiction of her overgrown garden, once the heroine's pride and joy. Other memorable scenes, framed in a white border, depict the mermaid towing the prince to shore after a shipwreck and, later, as dawn breaks on the day she is to turn to sea foam, the mermaid looks resolute, clothed in a glorious golden gown that resembles fish scales. Zwerger's parting scene, an aerial view of the prince's ship sailing away, amplifies the bittersweet yet redemptive conclusion, in which the little mermaid, now a "child of the air," may earn an immortal soul. The illustrations may well provide endless hours of reverie. Ages 4-8. (Sept.) Copyright 2004 Reed Business Information.
The Little Mermaid
Narrated by LibriVox Community
Hans Christian Andersen— 1 hours, 1 minutes
The Little Mermaid
Narrated by LibriVox Community
Hans Christian Andersen— 1 hours, 1 minutes
Overview
Editorial Reviews
Isadora's (Isadora Dances) haunting retelling of this classic tale leaves Disney's cotton-candy version far behind. Hewing faithfully to the darker themes of Andersen's original, Isadora relates the bittersweet story of the little mermaid who falls in love with a human prince and finds her love unrequited. Doomed by the sea witch's nefarious contract to become sea foam, the mermaid rejects the villainess's offer to save herself by murdering the prince, and instead martyrs herself for love. It's a fey, powerfully moving tale, exquisitely illustrated. While the text spools out against squares of sea-washed greens and grays, Isadora's ethereal watercolor portraits register a wide range of emotions, from the sweet innocence of the mermaid's yearning captured in a face tilted toward the water's surface, to the eerie image of her five sisters floating on a moonlit sea, offering up a knife to slay the prince. Isadora displays a dramatist's sense of lighting, endowing many scenes with the visual presence of a stage play. The sea-witch, for instance, is doubly frightening by virtue of her face being illuminated as if by footlights, casting cruel shadows and highlights across her leering visage. Isadora's superb artistic efforts outshine the somewhat pedestrian retelling, however, which lacks the emotional resonance of the illustrations. Ages 4-8. (May)
PreS-Gr 2--Isadora's light-filled watercolor paintings offset a less than engaging text in her retelling of Andersen's classic tale. The story of the mermaid who sacrifices her voice and suffers for her love of a human prince, while accessible to younger listeners and competent enough, lacks richness and depth. The paintings, however, express the true range of the tale, from the appealing, engaging child mermaid looking up with wonder and longing on the cover to the triumphant spirit soaring joyfully through the clouds at story's end. Isadora demonstrates her mastery of light and dark; the stormy painting of the tempest that sinks the prince's ship is followed by the sunny calm of the shore. The illustrations alone make the book a worthwhile purchase, and if the text is not as fleshed out as one might wish, it is at least a version of the story that will appeal to preschoolers.--Donna L. Scanlon, Lancaster County Library, PA
"Denmark's greatest writer" - Independent
2020-06-03
New illustrations accompany a 19th-century translation of Andersen’s text.
The decision to reprint Paull’s full 1872 English translation of Andersen’s story in picture-book form will likely alienate many readers. The length of the text, unartfully presented in overwhelming blocks of small, serif type, could intimidate readers, but outdated and objectionable content may present other barriers, exacerbated by illustration choices. Repeated use of the word “dumb,” for instance, to describe the mermaid’s inability to speak when she becomes human is insensitive at best. Before this point in the story, the blond, pink-skinned mermaid saves the drowning prince and leaves him onshore by a palace with architectural features that suggest a generic, exotic East, with arched doorways, onion domes, minarets, etc., and populated by characters in robes, veils, and saris. When the mermaid returns to the palace as a human, she watches “beautiful female slaves, dressed in silk and gold, [who] stepped forward and sang before the prince and his parents [and] performed some pretty fairylike dances to the sound of beautiful music.” Watts does not depict these enslaved people, but the book’s uncritical inclusion of this passage and its ultimate reiteration of the moralistic conclusion of the tale undermine ways the pretty, pastel- and jewel-toned pictures might have served a 21st-century audience.
Leave this one in the deeps. (Picture book/fairy tale. 5-8)
Product Details
| BN ID: | 2940170279418 |
|---|---|
| Publisher: | LibriVox |
| Publication date: | 08/25/2014 |
| Sales rank: | 236,698 |
| Age Range: | 8 - 11 Years |
Read an Excerpt
Far out at sea, the water is as blue as cornflower petals and as clear as the purest glass. Yet it’s very deep—
deeper than the reach of any anchor rope. You’d have to stack a lot of steeples on top of each other to reach from the bottom to the surface. And down at the bottom is where the sea folk live.
Now, you mustn’t think that the sea floor is only bare white sand—no, because the most marvellous trees and plants grow there. Their leaves and stems are so flexible,
the smallest movement of water makes them sway as if they were dancing. All the fish, big and small, flit through their branches, just like birds in the air up here. In the deepest spot of all stands the palace of the Sea King. Its walls are coral and its high pointed windows the clearest amber, while the roof is made of clamshells that open and close with the current. It looks magnificent, because in each shell there are glistening pearls, and any one of them would be the pride of a queen’s crown.
The Sea King had been widowed for many years,
and his old mother ran the royal household. She was a wise mermaid, though proud of her high rank; so she paraded about with twelve oysters on her tail, while the other mermaids at court could only have six. But she was admirable in all other things, especially her affection for the young sea princesses—her granddaughters. There were six of these lovely princesses, but the youngest was the most beautiful of all. Her skin glowed like a rose petal and her eyes were as blue as the deepest sea. And just like her sisters, she had no feet, for her body ended in a fish’s tail.
All day long they played in the great palace halls, where living flowers grew from the walls. When they threw open the tall amber windows, the fish would swim inside, just as swallows fly through our windows when we open them.
But these fish swam right over to the little princesses, ate from their hands and let themselves be petted.
Outside the palace lay a large garden with trees that were fiery red and navy blue. The fruit shone like gold and the flowers looked like burning flames, their stems and leaves forever flickering. The ground was the finest sand, but it was the blue colour of sulphur when it burns.
Everything was bathed in a wonderful azure glow, so that you might imagine you were high in the air, gazing only at the sky above and below you, rather than at the ocean floor. When the sea was calm, you could glimpse the crimson flower that all the light seemed to be streaming from—the sun.
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