Review by Booklist Review
Ages 7-9. This new Grimm tale, part of a letter Wilhelm wrote to a little girl in 1816, came to light in 1983. Commissioned as the illustrator, Sendak extends its themes and adds layers of meaning. The story is simple: a mother sends her treasured only child into the forest to escape the war that is engulfing the countryside. The frightened little girl finds refuge with St. Joseph and stays with him for three days; when she returns to her mother, however, she discovers that she has really been away for 30 years. After a joyful reunion, mother and daughter die and join St. Joseph in paradise. Sendak's masterful pictures are complex creations that incorporate strong, deliberate images of good and evil, joy and sorrow. A spread of the child lost in the forest is saturated with Holocaust imagery: vines and branches look like bones and bodies while dark walls hover over stark-looking figures crossing a bridge. In marked contrast to this is a later spread in which the happy moments of paradise are implied with Mozart conducting a satisfied group of musicians while Joseph and the little girl sit ensconced in a flower-laden woodsy setting. In many ways this will speak to adults more than children, for the art's emphasis on the abstract rather than the literal is bound to raise questions for younger viewers. They may well ask why, for example, if the child is lost in a deep forest, people and a building are close by. Sendak's attraction to the enigmatic and darker sides of human nature and to archetypal symbols is clear; there is much here to ponder in both story and illustration. DMW.
From Booklist, Copyright (c) American Library Association. Used with permission.
Review by Publisher's Weekly Review
Preserved in a letter written to a young girl, Mili, in 1816 and not discovered until 1983, the Grimm story is prefaced by a tender address in which he underscores the story's message: although there are many obstacles that can prevent people from being together, ``one human heart can go out to another, undeterred by what lies between.'' The story that follows implies that love transcends even death. Like many fairy tales, this one deals with extraordinary events. A widow sends her child into the forest to protect her from an approaching war. The girl is led by her guardian angel past menacing cliffs and chasms to the house of Saint Joseph with whom she lives for three days. Before she goes back to the village, Saint Joseph gives her a rosebud as a symbol of her return to paradise; when the girl reaches her home, she finds that the three days have been in reality 30 years. ``God has granted the widow's last wish'' to see her daughter once again. In the morning, mother and child are found dead, with Saint Joseph's rose ``in full bloom.'' Sendak's haunting interpretation of this stark tale is often more emotionally compelling than the story itself. Dear Mili is a variation on the themes of loss, separation and love that Sendak has explored before, most recently in Outside Over There . In the tradition of 19th century Sunday school literature, the plot and language of the text are often predictable and obviously preachy. For example, after Mili's long journey and prayer, a cleansing rain falls: ``God and my heart are weeping together,'' she says. In an attempt to transcend the limitations of the religious story, Sendak infuses it with images that are both nonsectarian and universal. Trees and roots in the valley of death become grasping, whitened bones scattered beneath an outline reminiscent of buildings at Auschwitz. The images are rich: dark clouds of war are etched with claws of yellow fire, and paradise is filled not only with music, but with lush flowers that burst, like those of Van Gogh or O'Keeffe, with passionate life. The volume may have more appeal for adults than for children, but nonetheless it contains unforgettable artwork of resonant power. Michael di Capua Books. All ages. (Oct.) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved
(c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved
Review by School Library Journal Review
K-Gr 3 This is a problematic book: a potent combination of compelling pictures and a seriously disturbing text. Although the discovery of the tale in 1983 made front-page news, there is little novelty or originality to it. The story, found in a letter of 1816, is a pastiche of several ``religious tales.'' When war approaches, a widowed mother sends her beloved little daughter, protected by a guardian angel, into the forest, trusting God to bring her back in three days. The intrepid girl encounters St. Joseph, dutifully does what she is bid, shares her cake, and plays with the angel (now a doppel-ganger ). On the third day the angel-double leads her home, where she finds an ``old, old woman''her mother. In those 3 days, 30 years have passed, and the mother has suffered fear and misery during a great war, while mourning the daughter whom she believed dead. Mother and child happily spend the evening together, go to bedand are found dead in the morning. Separation, fear, violence, and even death are familiar elements in Grimms' tales: what is unsettling here is the treatment, the unanticipated mixture of fairy tale, realism, and religion. Our firm expectationsthat the child will be safeguarded by her mother's love, by God's Providence, and by her own staunch goodnessare brutally undermined by the ending. Publishing this pious parable as a picture book for children in 1988 makes W. Grimm look like a macabre forerunner of O. Henry. The pictures only compound the problem. Stunningly beautiful, in Sendak's elaborate neo-19th-Century style, packed with ``high art'' touches, their Romantic grace, cozy cottages, and abundant flowers all reinforce our feelings of security. Although the story hints strongly that when the heroine finds St. Joseph she is actually in Heaven, the setting offers no clarification on this point. The gorgeous art and the names Sendak and Grimm guarantee that this book will be requested. Warned by librarians and booksellers, parents might at least choose to modify or omit the last few lines at bedtime readings. Patricia Dooley, University of Washington, Seattle (c) Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
(c) Copyright Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
Review by Kirkus Book Review
Apparently the first additional Grimm story to be discovered since publication of the canon in 1812-15, this was a letter, preserved by the family of the child to whom it was sent. The child is addressed in an unusual preface concerning stories as messages from one heart to another--through space or time. The stow itself speaks so directly to the concerns of our time that it seems extraordinary to have it appear now. Compare ""Hansel and Gretel"": the child here is sent into the forest by a loving mother (a single parent) to escape the terrible ravages of war. There, with the help of her guardian angel, she finds her way to a hut, where she stays with a kindly old man--St. Joseph. After three days, she returns to her mother--now an old woman--and after a happy evening, the two sleep. In the morning they are dead: the child has returned to St. Joseph, as he promised. The tale is profoundly rich in both language and symbol; Sendak's complex, allusive illustrations extend the richness. The use of opulent background detail recalls Outside Over There, but the exquisite reproduction on flat paper here gives the paintings more depth and intensity, and some of the scenes recall Sendak's recent experience in designing operas. The overall mood is tender, pensive, reverent, though careful perusal reveals references to the evils of war as well as the glorious blossoms of paradise. Not to be missed. Copyright ©Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
