From Publishers Weekly
About this retelling of the haunting Scottish folktale, PW said, "The lyrical text weaves a tale of sweeping dimension; this is storytelling at its finest. Particularly lovely are Hutton's sensitive and muted watercolors." All ages.
Copyright 1991 Reed Business Information, Inc.
From School Library Journal
Kindergarten-Grade 3 Both Mordicai Gerstein (The Seal Mother Dial, 1986) and Susan Cooper have retold the folktale of the Selkie who is forced to live among mortals. In Cooper's version, Donallan falls in love with one of three beautiful naked selkie-maidens that he sees sitting on the rocks. Stealing her sealskin so that she cannot return to the sea, he marries her. Although she bears his five children, whom she loves deeply, she longs for her home and her family in the sea. At last she learns where her skin is hidden and, putting it on, dives joyously into the waves. But every year, Donallan and his children go down to the sea and when they return, there is "a look on their faces like sunlight." Cooper retells this ancient folktale from the coastal regions of Ireland and Scotland in a simple, direct storybook style, which, while lacking some of the exquisite beauty and flowing language of an Eva LaGalliene, still captures enough of the essence to appeal to young readers. Hutton's watercolors match and extend Cooper's narrative in the best traditional "picture story book" fashion, and if both fall slightly short of the haunting and timeless quality possible in such a tale, they still create a story to capture and hold the young. Yet Gerstein's book, grounded in familial love, is the more appealing version. Constance A. Mellon, Department of Library & Information Studies, East Carolina University , Greenville, N.C.
Copyright 1986 Reed Business Information, Inc.
--Ce texte provient d'une édition qui n'est plus publiée ou qui est non diponible.
