Review by Publisher's Weekly Review
Following his reimagining of "The Three Billy Goats Gruff," Barnett retells "Rumpelstiltskin," his wisecracking lines (the miller is "a nice enough guy, but he had a big mouth") joined by the medieval elegance of gouache spreads by Caldecott Honoree Ellis. After the miller jests to the visiting king about his own daughter's ability to spin gold from straw, the daughter is shown hunched in despair within a royal room. The small, cunning man who appears out of nowhere will spin the king's ever-larger piles of straw into gold, but he demands rewards in return--she offers first her jewelry, then her firstborn. After she weds the king and bears a child, the little man promises mercy if she can guess his name. A list is made and read aloud, and hilarity bubbles to the surface ("Jay? Shawn?" "No! No!" "Danladi? Octavius? Cuthbert?" "No! No! No!") as the scroll of names is shown drifting and looping around the page. Short, punchy text juices the tale's momentum ("Deal," the girl replies to the wily man's offers), while portraits trace the miller's daughter's journey from frog-catching child to regal royal and back again in this haunting tale about the power of knowing someone's name. Most characters are portrayed with pale skin. Ages 4--8. (Feb.)
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Review by Horn Book Review
Barnett and Ellis honor tradition while finding contemporary notes in their retelling of "Rumpelstiltskin." The first spread establishes a droll narrator with a colloquial delivery: "Her father, a poor miller, was a nice enough guy, but he had a big mouth. He told wild stories and bragged all the time. Here, I'll give you an example." Chatty text appears in white space alongside saturated gouache paintings and black-and-white spot illustrations, recalling picture-book design from the first half of the twentieth century. The miller's daughter isn't limited by early-twentieth-century ideas about beauty or behavior, though: this future queen is solid, barefoot, and busy whittling and capturing tadpoles (though the art shows her with a frog). When locked into a series of rooms full of straw by the greedy king, she makes her successive bargains with the mysterious little man who spins straw into gold, ultimately promising him her firstborn child. When the man returns a year later to claim the baby, Barnett spins out the guessing of names ("Nidnod? Wizzle-kicks? Sheepshanks? Laceleg?"), adding humor while emphasizing the protagonist's determination to keep her child. In many tellings the miller's daughter learns Rumpelstiltskin's name from a messenger; here, on the night before her final opportunity to guess, she takes her son for a walk, accidentally discovers the little man's name, outwits him, and lives her life in peace. A satisfying version of an oft-told tale. Adrienne PettinelliJanuary/February 2026 p.84 (c) Copyright The Horn Book, Inc., a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
(c) Copyright The Horn Book, Inc., a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
Review by Kirkus Book Review
Two acclaimed creators retell a fairy-tale classic. Employing a conversational style, Barnett offers a fresh and immensely entertaining take on an old story, much as he did withThe Three Billy Goats Gruff, illustrated by Jon Klassen (2022). A miller ("a nice enough guy, but he had a big mouth") encounters the king and, seeking to impress him, falsely claims that his daughter can spin straw into gold. What follows is the classic story, replete with spinning wheels and small men who make clandestine deals with the desperate for their offspring. While never diverging from the original, Barnett nevertheless allows his miller's daughter, if not a name (on purpose, it turns out), then hobbies like "whittling sticks and catching tadpoles with her bare hands." This miller's daughter is still caught in the machinations of the men around her, but Barnett demonstrates that her love of the woods is key to her defeating Rumpelstiltskin. His sly retelling is perfectly complemented by art that at times resembles classical portraiture. Ellis also harkens back to fairy-tale images of yore with both lushly illustrated gouache pictures and small interstitial black-and-white spot art. Characters present white. Deeply familiar but infused with 21st-century smarts; expect cries for repeated reads.(Picture book. 4-7) Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
