The Steadfast Tin Soldier

by Tor Seidler (Retold by), Fred Marcellino (Illustrator)

Overview

Award-winning author Tor Seidler and the incomparable illustrator Fred Marcellino retell Hans Christian Anderson’s classic Christmas tale about a tin solder who is separated from the paper ballerina he loves in this stunning picture book that’s perfect for gift-giving.

True love blossoms between a handsome one-legged tin soldier and a graceful paper ballerina, posed in arabesque. But when a jealous goblin pushes the soldier out a window, the soldier embarks on a journey through storm drains, past toll-collecting rats, into canals, and inside a fish before finding his way back with his beloved ballerina.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781481476638
Publisher:	Atheneum/Caitlyn Dlouhy Books
Publication date:	09/19/2017
Sold by:	SIMON & SCHUSTER
Format:	eBook
Pages:	32
Lexile:	790L (what's this?)
File size:	73 MB
Note:	This product may take a few minutes to download.
Age Range:	4 - 8 Years

About the Author

Tor Seidler is the critically acclaimed and bestselling author of more than a dozen children’s books, including Firstborn, The Wainscott Weasel, A Rat’s Tale, The Steadfast Tin Soldier, Gully’s Travels, and most notably Mean Margaret, which was a National Book Award Finalist. He lives in New York, New York.

Fred Marcellino, the renowned and beloved artist and illustrator, won a Caldecott Honor for his first full-color picture book, Puss in Boots. He began his career in children’s literature with Tor Seidler’s A Rat’s Tale in 1985, and followed with many other classics such as I, Crocodile and The Steadfast Tin Soldier.

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