The Selfish Giant

by Oscar Wilde, Jeanne Bowman (Illustrator)

Overview

A beloved tale that has lasted for generations, The Selfish Giant by Oscar Wilde, one of the world’s greatest writers, tells the tale of a very selfish giant, his wonderful garden, the curious and playful village children, and, of course, the little child who changes the giant’s heart. A beloved classic in English literature, The Selfish Giant may be Oscar Wilde’s greatest story of redemption and forgiveness.

Newly illustrated by renowned artist Jeanne Bowman, this fantastic edition of this famous tale showcases Wilde’s story in a pallet and composition that will delight and inspire both young and old and will become a family treasure to be read again and again.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781641701266
Publisher:	Familius
Publication date:	03/01/2019
Pages:	32
Sales rank:	399,918
Product dimensions:	9.00(w) x 11.10(h) x 0.60(d)
Age Range:	5 - 8 Years

About the Author

Jeanne Bowman moved around a lot as a kid, bouncing up and down the spine of the Rocky Mountains. She graduated from a college with the same name and majored in art. Jeanne decided when she was four that becoming an illustrator would be the best job for her, as you can read all the books you want and you don't have to go out into the sun, which burns. She currently resides in Montana. Jeanne is now addicted to illustrating stories for children and can't wait for the next one.

Oscar Wilde was born in 1854 in Dublin, Ireland. He is best known for his poetry, plays, including The Importance of Being Earnest, and the novel The Picture of Dorian Gray. Wilde also wrote a popular collection of stories for children called The Happy Prince and Other Tales. In the years since their publication, the stories in that collection–including The Selfish Giant–have been dramatized through radio, film, and dance worldwide.

Date of Birth:

October 16, 1854

Date of Death:

November 30, 1900

Place of Birth:

Dublin, Ireland

Place of Death:

Paris, France

Education:

The Royal School in Enniskillen, Dublin, 1864; Trinity College, Dublin, 1871; Magdalen College, Oxford, England, 1874

Read an Excerpt

Every afternoon, as they were coming from school, the children used to go and play in the Giant's garden.

     It was a large lovely garden, with soft green grass. Here and there over the grass stood beautiful flowers like stars, and there were twelve peach-trees that in the spring-time broke out into delicate blossoms of pink and pearl, and in the autumn bore rich fruit. The birds sat on the trees and sang so sweetly that the children used to stop their games in order to listen to them. 'How happy we are here!' they cried to each other.

     One day the Giant came back. He had been to visit his friend the Cornish ogre, and had stayed with him for seven years. After the seven years were over he had said all that he had to say, for his conversation was limited, and he determined to return to his own castle. When he arrived he saw the children playing in the garden.

     'What are you doing here?' he cried in a very gruff voice, and the children ran away.

     'My own garden is my own garden,' said the Giant; 'any one can understand that, and I will allow nobody to play in it but myself.' So he built a high wall all round it, and put up a notice-board.

 

TRESPASSERS 
WILL BE 
PROSECUTED

 

     He was a very selfish Giant.

Editorial Reviews

01/31/2019

In a modern reimagining of Wilde’s classic tale, schoolchildren find refuge in a beautiful garden, but when a snarling, ginger-haired giant arrives, he angrily chases the children away and builds a “high wall” to keep them out—“He was a very selfish Giant.” But while spring flowers bud beyond the garden, winter persists inside. Bowman personifies the snow and frost as two vulpine figures clothed in garments of snowflakes and ice, the North Wind as an owl with bright blue eyes, and hail as a basket-toting baboon. As the seasons pass, the Selfish Giant hunkers down, wishing for spring; eventually, he hears music outside his window. The children have returned to the garden, now blooming, and the giant knocks down the wall. While Wilde’s unsettling ending and introduction of a Christ-like child bearing “the wounds of love” may prove perplexing for today’s readers, this remains a hopeful—and strangely timely—story about generosity and redemption. Ages 5–8. (Apr.)

Publishers Weekly

"The richly sentimental 19th-century tale gets a 21st-century setting."
-Kirkus Reviews

" This remains a hopeful—and strangely timely—story about generosity and redemption."
- Publishers Weekly
 

"First published in 1888, Oscar Wilde’s classic short story of a miserable giant and his magical winter garden is reinvented with new depth, emotion, and an explosion of color. Clever details add modern touches while paying homage to the original tale of how a small child’s friendship slowly melts a giant’s cold heart. Christian themes of love, forgiveness, and sacrifice are clear throughout as the frozen garden gradually transforms into a beautiful riot of blossoms."
- Michelle Schingler, Foreword Reviews

From the Publisher

First published in 1888, Oscar Wilde’s classic short story of a miserable giant and his magical winter garden is reinvented with new depth, emotion, and an explosion of color. Clever details add modern touches while paying homage to the original tale of how a small child’s friendship slowly melts a giant’s cold heart. Christian themes of love, forgiveness, and sacrifice are clear throughout as the frozen garden gradually transforms into a beautiful riot of blossoms.

Foreword Reviews - Michelle Schingler

The richly sentimental 19th-century tale gets a 21st-century setting.

Poor artistic decisions stymie a worthy effort. Preserved here unaltered (though printed in teeny-tiny type), Wilde’s economically written original makes for, as ever, stately, sonorous reading, aloud or otherwise. Visually, Bowman’s eye-filling garden scenes sandwich genuinely shiver-inducing tangles of dry stalks swathed in frost and snow between, in better seasons, views of luxuriant masses of outsized flowers and greenery. The giant is a red-haired, white gent in moderately antique clothing…but the tiny children he chases away (and later welcomes back) are a racially diverse lot in school uniforms and sporting backpacks and hula hoops. Taped-up advertisements on the outside of the giant’s wall and other details further add to the understated contemporary air, and the smallest child, who comes back at the end bearing stigmata to welcome the now-elderly giant to his garden, has an unruly shock of dark hair and an olive complexion. All of this updating comes to naught, though, because with supreme disregard for the story’s essentially solemn tone and cadences, Bowman arbitrarily sticks in silly bits—first depicting Hail as a baboon with a bright red butt (the garden’s other winter residents are at least embodied as northern animals) and then in a climactic scene putting the giant into humongous footie pajamas decorated with bunnies and carrots. Talk about discordant notes.

Opinions may differ about the story’s sublimity; here it’s been made ridiculous. (Picture book. 6-9)

Kirkus Reviews