School Library Journal
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
Publishers Weekly
★ 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.)
From the Publisher
★"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
Kirkus Reviews
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)
