Blog #17

Thumbelina

Originally written by: Hans Christian Andersen

Retold and illustrated by: Brian Pinkney

Greenwillow Books

2003

38 pages

Traditional Literature

            I chose this book because of the story of Thumbelina.  It was one of my favorite stories as a child.  Thumbelina is a mix between traditional literature and modern fantasy.  It is a magic fairy tale about a girl the size of a thumb.  The girl was born from the petals of a flower to an old woman.  Thumbelina was happy until one day a toad kidnapped her to be her son’s wife.  Thumbelina barely escaped unhappiness due to the work of a couple fish and a butterfly.  Thumbelina’s quest for happiness is affected by other animals and insects such as a June bug, a field mouse, a mole, and a bird.  Through a long string of events, Thumbelina rescues the bird from death and just when Thumbelina was about to be forced into marriage to the mole, the bird flew Thumbelina far away.  The bird took her to a colony of tiny people who lived in flowers just like her!  The prince of the little people married Thumbelina and they lived happily ever after.

The illustrator of this book is also the author, Brain Pinkney.  Pinkney used very bright, bold, warm colors when creating this artwork.  The book informs me that he used colored inks on clay board to create the illustrations.  Pinkney also used bold, black lines that differentiate objects in the pictures.  The layout is double page spread throughout with formal text placement.  I love the depiction of the flowers, animals, and insects throughout the book.  They are realistic cartoon depictions with bright colors.  The perspective of the illustrations is the viewpoint as Thumbelina sees it.  Thumbelina, even though she is tiny, is never shown as that tiny.  Instead, the objects in the pictures are just larger than normal.

This book is appropriate for children in kindergarten through fifth grade.  The children will identify with themes the character goes through and also will be interested in the fantasy elements of the story.  I would use this book to talk about character education.  Throughout the book Thumbelina is looking for her place of happiness.  Teachers can talk to their students about finding what makes you happy in life.  Also, it could be used in a science lesson talking about different types of animals.  Also, this would be a good example of a mixed genre book.  A teacher could talk about how different genres of books sometimes overlap on a single book.  I liked this book because of the happy ending and the illustrations. This book has won no awards.