Publishers Weekly
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.
Publishers Weekly - Publisher's Weekly
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)
School Library Journal
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
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Kirkus Reviews
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)