Scan barcode
A review by jason_pym
East o' the Sun and West o' the Moon by Peter Christen Asbjørnsen
3.0
A children's book for adults. The text is the taken from the 19th century retelling by Sir George Webbe Dasent in Popular Tales from the Norse, and doesn't seem to have been rewritten. It has all the weird fairy tale logic that kids would find a bit hard to take today, unless they were younger kids in which case this version is way to wordy.
The watercolour illustrations are lovely, though, they're what make the book. Four stars for the illustrations.
Before I read this, I didn't realise that bears were such a big part of Scandinavian myth - there are several pictures (including the one on the cover) that could be straight up illustrations of The Northern Lights, and this mythology is obviously where Pullman got his inspiration for the Panserbjørn from.
The watercolour illustrations are lovely, though, they're what make the book. Four stars for the illustrations.
Before I read this, I didn't realise that bears were such a big part of Scandinavian myth - there are several pictures (including the one on the cover) that could be straight up illustrations of The Northern Lights, and this mythology is obviously where Pullman got his inspiration for the Panserbjørn from.