Nutcracker & Mouseking

by E.T.A. Hoffmann, Renate Raecke (Illustrator), Anthea Bell (Translator)

Overview

The tale of Nutcracker, written in 1816, has fascinated and inspired artists, composers, and audiences for almost two hundred years. It has retained its freshness because it appeals to the sense of wonder we all share. This retelling by Renate Raecke is beautifully illustrated by Russian artist Yana Sedova.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9789888341276
Publisher:	Astra Publishing House
Publication date:	10/01/2016
Pages:	32
Product dimensions:	10.50(w) x 10.50(h) x 0.50(d)
Age Range:	5 - 7 Years

About the Author

Ernst Theodor Wilhelm Hoffmann was a German Romantic author of fantasy and horror, a jurist, composer, music critic, draftsman and caricaturist.

Renate Raecke has been adapting and translating children's books for more than 25 years.

Yana Sedova was born in Moscow. The Snow Queen, her first book in English, is published by minedition

Anthea Bell is the recipient of the Schlegel Tieck Prize for translation from German, the Independent Foreign Fiction Prize, and the Helen and Kurt Wolff Prize in 2002 for the translation of W. G. Sebald's Austerlitz, and the 2003 Austrian State Prize for Literary Translation.

Editorial Reviews

09/26/2016
Raecke (The Fisherman and His Wife) impressively adapts Hoffmann’s original story of the Nutcracker, using evocative yet accessible language to bring the story to a picture book audience. On page after page, Russian artist Sedova, who illustrated a 2014 adaptation of The Snow Queen, fully embraces the magical events of young Marie Stahlbaum’s Christmas Eve, incorporating visual references to clockwork gears that reflect Godfather Drosselmeier’s mechanical talents, as well as mice, stars, candies, and other thematic elements. The battle scene never becomes too violent—curls of ribbon and bursts of paint abstractly suggest weapon fire—and Marie’s journey into Candytown and beyond with the transformed Nutcracker is full of intriguing images that readers will want to study closely. Raecke leaves readers with Marie’s realization that “the most truly marvelous things may be seen—if only people choose to look,” a message worth remembering throughout the year. Ages 5–7. (Oct.)

Publishers Weekly

"Illustrated with rich, painterly precision and dreamlike details that echo the story’s shifts from reality to fantasy . . .A gorgeously made edition." —Virginia Walter, School Library Journal


"Illustrated with rich, painterly precision and dreamlike details that echo the story’s shifts from reality to fantasy . . . A gorgeously made edition." —Virginia Walter, UCLA Graduate School of Education and Information Studies


"Raecke impressively adapts Hoffmann’s original story of the Nutcracker, using evocative yet accessible language to bring the story to a picture book audience . . . . full of intriguing images that readers will want to study closely. Raecke leaves readers with Marie’s realization that 'the most truly marvelous things may be seen—if only people choose to look,' a message worth remembering throughout the year." —Publishers Weekly

From the Publisher

10/01/2016
K-Gr 3—This picture book retelling of the original Hoffmann tale, which was written 200 years ago, is illustrated with rich, painterly precision and dreamlike details that echo the story's shifts from reality to fantasy. Gears and clockwork elements appear throughout, and the seven-headed Mouse King is particularly realistic, down to the whiskers. The storytelling is straightforward, and neither the battle scene nor the foray to Candytown is very long or graphic. VERDICT A gorgeously made edition for collectors and literature experts.—Virginia Walter, UCLA Graduate School of Education and Information Studies

School Library Journal

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