The Steadfast Tin Soldier

by Hans Christian Andersen, Cynthia Rylant, Jen Corace (Illustrator)

Overview

A beautifully illustrated version of the classic fairy tale about a tin soldier’s adventure and his love for a ballerina, retold with a twist.

With her signature warmth and lyricism, Newbery winner Cynthia Rylant has crafted a new version of the classic Hans Christian Andersen fairy tale about a tin soldier who falls in love with a ballerina. As in the original story, the tin soldier’s love for the beautiful ballerina is thwarted by a goblin. The tin soldier is separated from the other toys and washed down a sewer, where he encounters a rat and gets swallowed by a fish, but somehow, against all odds, he manages to end up back home only to be cast into the nursery fire. Rylant adds her own twist to the end of the tale, however, for in this version, the tin soldier and the ballerina are melded to each other, rather than melted, in the heat of the fire, so they’ll never be parted again. Rylant’s expert storytelling paired with Corace’s stunning illustrations create a beautiful, unforgettable tale of everlasting love.

Praise for The Steadfast Tin Soldier

“Gracefully written. . . . The book’s large format gives plenty of scope for Corace’s distinctive illustrations, precise ink drawings brightened with watercolor, gouache, and acrylic paints. Sometimes brilliantly colorful and sometimes more subdued, the scenes can be crowded with dozens of toys or other visual elements, but they show up well from a distance. The subtle depictions of the goblin and his shadow are particularly fine. A softened vision of the literary fairy tale.” —Booklist

“Text and illustrations weave seamlessly to create an involving, fast-paced update of a much-loved tale. Rylant's retelling is abridged, yet sprightly, and Corace’s watercolor, gouache, acrylic, and pen-and-ink illustrations add nuance and whimsy to Andersen's original.” —School Library Journal

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781613124987
Publisher:	ABRAMS, Inc.
Publication date:	04/22/2022
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
Pages:	32
Lexile:	760L (what's this?)
File size:	21 MB
Note:	This product may take a few minutes to download.
Age Range:	5 - 8 Years

About the Author

Cynthia Rylant is a two-time Newbery winner and the author of more than 100 books for children, including All in a Day. Jen Corace received her BFA in illustration from the Rhode Island School of Design and has illustrated a number of children’s books, including Little Pea. Visit her at jencorace.com.
Hans Christian Andersen (1805–1875) was a Danish poet and author. Born to a shoemaker and a washerwoman, Andersen worked as an actor and a tailor’s apprentice before becoming a writer. Although he wrote many plays, novels, poems, and travelogues, Andersen is best known for his fairy tales. His birthday, April 2, is celebrated as International Children’s Book Day. 

Date of Birth:

April 2, 1805

Date of Death:

August 4, 1875

Place of Birth:

Odense, Denmark

Place of Death:

Copenhagen, Denmark

Editorial Reviews

Gr 1-3-- Either the hegemony of the Disney house, or the reluctance of an artist to sign rough drafts, has prevented any individual from being identified or credited for the ``illustrations from the Disney Archives'' used here. Instead of finished stills, the pictures are for the most part crude chalk sketches. The unattractive dancer recalls a Barbie prototype, and the flat-faced soldier is characterless. The pictures seem to have been composed for a storyboard, not a book. The text has been significantly altered, with small items added to fit the Disneyfied story: cliche (``. . . light at the end of the tunnel''), the imp made responsible for the soldier's misadventures, and a quite un-Andersenian ``Little Engine'' optimism (``I think it's getting easier each time I try . . .''). Several other editions are in print: try Samantha Easton's small-format version, illustrated by Michael Montgomery (Andrews & McMeel, 1991). --Patricia Dooley, Univ . of Washington, Seattle

School Library Journal

In a young boy's room, a one-legged tin soldier stares lovingly at the ballerina doll, who also balances on one leg. When the boy carelessly places him on the windowsill, the little soldier falls to the street below and begins a journey that takes him to strange and dangerous places, and then brings him back home. There, in the flames of the stove, the tin soldier is finally united with his ballerina. This picture-book version of the classic fairy tale distills Andersen's original down to the essential narrative without fundamentally changing the nature of the story. The illustrations, varied in perspective and well composed for dramatic effect, tell the tale through a series of colorful double-page spreads that feature impressionistic views of nineteenth-century scenes. The simplified text makes this beautiful book suitable for a somewhat younger audience than the equally fine Seidler/Marcellino and Lewis/Lynch editions, both published in 1992.

Carolyn Phelan

★ 10/10/2016
In a visually striking and fittingly dark interpretation of a tragic fairy tale, a one-legged tin soldier falls in love with a paper ballerina. After falling from a window, the soldier begins a circuitous journey, eventually swallowed by a fish. Colored in bold reds, blacks, and grays, Yoon’s angular mixed-media prints highlight the soldier’s stoicism and the perils he faces. Yoon (The Tiger Who Would Be King) confronts the story’s darkest moments head on: when a cook cuts open the fish and discovers the soldier inside, its blood and entrails pour out grotesquely. And, as in the original Andersen, the soldier and ballerina’s relationship ends in fire, as they are incinerated in a stove. Ages 6–9. (Nov.)

Publishers Weekly

★"Colored in bold reds, blacks, and grays, Yoon's angular mixed-media prints highlight the soldier's stoicism and the perils he faces." — STARRED REVIEW, Publishers Weekly

"Hans Christian Andersen’s iconic tale of love, loyalty, and loss, The Steadfast Tin Soldier, is retold by Joohee Yoon using classic printmaking artistry with an avant-garde edge. In gray scale with vivid scarlet splashes, the story of the soldier and the ballerina unfolds, maintaining all the tragic dignity of the original while infusing a fresh and thrilling air of suspense and emotion, ideal for those experiencing the tin soldier’s journey for the first time or the fiftieth."—Foreword Reviews

"…absolutely stunning.” —Sally Morgan, The Curious Reader (Glen Rock, NJ)
"Yoon faithfully retells Andersen’s literary fairy tale in sober prose and dazzling illustrations, created by hand drawing, relief printing, and computer techniques. The story of the one-legged toy soldier who falls in love with a paper ballerina and accidentally embarks on a series of adventures certainly has its grim moments, and Yoon’s art—with its layered patterns and textures, limited palette (red, black, and gray), and dynamic perspectives—revels in these. ... Yoon’s art, with its intentionally static feel despite all those eye-catching patterns, evokes the heart of Andersen’s tale: the tragedy of the soldier’s steadfastness and enforced passivity."—Katrina Hedeen, The Horn Book ”I’m such a sucker for everything that [JooHee Yoon] makes, and this didn’t disappoint. She perfectly achieves a captivating story using black, white, red, and silver in graphic shapes, texture, and a beautiful style.” —The Reading Ninja

From the Publisher

2016-10-08
Relief-print illustrations in red and black give this retelling of Andersen’s unhappy love story between a one-legged tin soldier and a ballerina doll a particularly dark edge.Yoon makes only minor changes to Andersen’s narrative, but her choices for color and imagery add naturalistic, even brutal notes. These are highlighted by the soldier’s encounters with a nightmarish jack-in-the-box “troll” and a huge, vicious sewer rat, followed by his later rediscovery amid the guts and gore of a fish being chopped up for the stew pot. Mirroring the soldier, the ballerina, frozen in midpirouette, is angled throughout so that only one leg is visible. Yoon’s figures are all flat, with fixed eyes and mottled surfaces. The deep black and vivid red color scheme casts a perfervid glare over jumbled settings and piles of antique toys (including, anachronistically, a retro-style robot) and looks particularly hellish in the depiction of the flames in which the lovers are climactically united…for an instant. Or maybe that’s supposed to be the consuming flames of love? This is not recommended for bedtime reading. A disturbing but, considering the storyline, entirely justified interpretation. (Picture book. 7-9)

Kirkus Reviews