Shrunken Treasures: Literary Classics, Short, Sweet, and Silly
By (Author) Scott Nash
Illustrated by Scott Nash
Candlewick Press,U.S.
Candlewick Press,U.S.
1st April 2016
United States
Children
Fiction
Hardback
40
Width 257mm, Height 295mm, Spine 10mm
595g
Nine weighty literary classics are transformed into delectable morsels with Scott Nashs playful versification and whimsical illustration.
Cant stomach all of Frankenstein Lacking the strength to read The Odyssey Dont have 1,001 nights to get through Scheherazades ordeal Never fear, Shrunken Treasures are here! Nine of the worlds best-known stories and books have been reduced, like slowly simmered cherries, to tart and tasty mouthfuls. Lighthearted verse turns Moby-Dick into a simple nursery song. Outrageous color makes even gloomy Hamlet seem like fun. Riotous images transform Jane Eyres ordeal into a whirlwind adventure. The Metamorphosis, Remembrance of Things Past, Don Quixote, and others have all been delivered from dense duty to delightful ditty in Scott Nashs collection of hallowed classics, featuring notes about the original texts at the end.
Young readers are introduced to nine classic stories the author claims to have put in a versizer and shrunk to lively verse and humorous illustrations...A lighthearted and clever rendering of some classics young readers may be inclined to read later on.
School Library Journal (starred review)
The rhymes are ripping, the poems poignant, the puns are ever so much fun and the illustrations illuminating. Scott Nashs talent is exploding on these pages and I am forever a solid fan.
Jesica Sweedler DeHart, bookseller at BookPeople of Moscow
In a quest to cast nine renowned literary works into short poems, Nash (Uh-oh, Baby!) does best with his one-line summation of Prousts Remembrance of Things Past: I dipped a sweet cake in my tea/ And a whole world came back to me. His crisp, digitally produced artwork renders these literary heroes as round-headed, doll-like figures, their cheerful expressions belying the awful things that happen to them in their respective stories.
Publishers Weekly
Adult readers will admire the deft way Nash has sidestepped violence in some works and given others pleasant, happily-ever-after endings in spite of themselves...The Odyssey, Moby-Dick, and Remembrance of Things Past are particularly witty. Cartoonish digital art brings the characters to life and keeps the tone playful and perky.
Booklist Online
Genius! Far from your typical CliffsNotes, these nine kid-friendly interpretations of the classics feature fun illustrations and lots of jokes.
FamilyFun
Scott Nash is the creator of the illuminated middle-grade novel The High-Skies Adventures of Blue Jay the Pirate and the early reader Tuff Fluff: The Case of Duckie's Missing Brain. He is also the illustrator of Saturday Night at the Dinosaur Stomp by Carol Diggory Shields and many other childrens books. He lives on Peaks Island off the coast of Portland, Maine.