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Library | Call Number | Status |
|---|---|---|
Searching... Oakdale Library | J 398.2 PIE | Searching... Unknown |
Searching... R.H. Stafford Library (Woodbury) | J 398.2 PIE | Searching... Unknown |
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Summary
Summary
With bewitching silhouettes and glowing, marbleized backgrounds, Pienkowski's exquisitely detailed illustrations decorate every page of this stunning collection. Each fairy tale has been translated and retold to reflect the original dark magic of the earliest versions of these works. Full color.
Author Notes
Jan Pienkowski was born in Warsaw in 1936. During the war Pienkowski moved a lot, from Poland to Austria, Germany, Italy and finally to England in 1946. He went to The Cardinal Vaughan School in London and then to King's College, Cambridge, where he read Classics and English and became involved in stage design.
Pienkowski co-founded the greetings card company, Gallery Five. He worked in advertising, publishing, and doing graphics for the BBC children's TV series Watch! In his spare time, he started to illustrate books for children. He won the Library Association Kate Greenaway Medal in 1972 for his silhouette illustrations to Joan Aiken's The Kingdom Under The Sea and again in 1980 for Haunted House.
Jan pioneered the modern Pop-up book with Haunted House, Robot, Dinner Time, Good Night and 17 others. Meg and Mog, the series of books which Jan created with Helen Nicoll, has reached 14 titles. Four of them became the Meg and Mog Show, exuberantly staged by David Wood and designed for the West End by Jan. His lifelong interest in stage design landed other commissions: two shows for Theatre de Complicite, then Beauty and the Beast for The Royal Ballet, Covent Garden and a spectacular Sleeping Beauty at Disneyland, Paris.
In 2019, he was presented with the BookTrust Lifetime Achievement Award. On February 19, 2022, he died at the age of 85.
030 (Bowker Author Biography)
Reviews (4)
School Library Journal Review
PreS-Gr 4-This elegant publication includes "Sleeping Beauty," "Cinderella," "Hansel and Gretel," and "Snow White." The illustrations are a dramatic mix of black silhouettes on white paper, often surrounded by swirls of color and silhouettes filled in with color. Large calligraphic letters on colorful backgrounds pop up throughout the book at the heads of paragraphs; the print is large and clear. Surprisingly, in such a beautifully designed book, there is no table of contents for readers who want to locate a specific story. Page numbers are provided, although their value seems somewhat diminished. A brief introduction includes information about the Grimm Brothers and Charles Perrault as well as some context for the artist's decision to illustrate these particular tales; however, no bibliography pinpoints the exact sources for the text. While young children may primarily be interested in the stories, the beauty and quality of presentation will please older readers and book collectors.-Kirsten Cutler, Sonoma County Library, CA (c) Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
Horn Book Review
This noteworthy collection includes four stories: ""Sleeping Beauty,"" ""Snow White,"" and ""Hansel and Gretel,"" all retold by the Grimms, and Charles Perrault's ""Cinderella."" The stories were originally published separately in 1977 and are decorated with Pieńkowski's stunning black-and-white silhouette art with watercolor highlights. (c) Copyright 2010. The Horn Book, Inc., a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted. All rights reserved.
Kirkus Review
These four tales from the Brothers Grimm and Charles Perrault (Sleeping Beauty, Snow White, Hansel and Gretel and Cinderella) were first published as separate small volumes in the 1970s and again in 1992. However, this new format, containing four of the original six tales, marks an impressive step forward. Pienkowski's exquisite illustrations of paper-cut silhouettes with occasional color or marbled paper effects are of such astonishing detail and great power that they need this larger size to show off their beauty. Much care has gone into the making of this volume; the font is large, clear and decorative and there is judicious use of white space. Still, there are gorgeous illustrations on every page. Even the page numbers nestle within a fleuron. The language is consciously antique but effective and is well suited to reading aloud. A wonderful gift in all meanings of the word. (foreword, author and translator notes) (Fairytales. 7-12) Copyright ©Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
Booklist Review
Elegant design, dramatic silhouettes, hand lettering, and gold-edged pages give a vintage look to The Fairy Tales,0 a collection of four stories--"Sleeping Beauty ,0 " 0 "Snow White," 0 "Hansel and Gretel ,0 " 0 and "Cinderella." The tales, translated from original German texts, are illustrated with bold, color-accented silhouettes modeled after a traditional European art form; they not only decorate the page but also effectively convey the magical drama of the tales. Spaciously laid out text and thick paper add to the effect. A foreword about the tales' authors and a page each contributed by the translator and the illustrator establish origins, literary significance, and personal connections to the tales. --Julie Cummins Copyright 2006 Booklist
