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Summary
Summary
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.
Author Notes
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.
Reviews (2)
Publisher's Weekly Review
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.) © Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved.
Kirkus Review
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 clothingbut 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 bitsfirst 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) Copyright Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.