The Skull
A Tyrolean Folktale
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4.0 • 5 Ratings
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- $13.99
Publisher Description
A #1 New York Times bestseller!
Caldecott Medalist and New York Times best-selling author-illustrator Jon Klassen delivers a deliciously macabre treat for folktale fans. Jon Klassen's signature wry humor takes a turn for the ghostly in this thrilling retelling of a traditional Tyrolean folktale. In a big abandoned house, on a barren hill, lives a skull. A brave girl named Otilla has escaped from terrible danger and run away, and when she finds herself lost in the dark forest, the lonely house beckons. Her host, the skull, is afraid of something too, something that comes every night. Can brave Otilla save them both? Steeped in shadows and threaded with subtle wit—with rich, monochromatic artwork and an illuminating author’s note—The Skull is as empowering as it is mysterious and foreboding.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
This eerie reworking of a Tyrolean folktale by Caldecott Medalist Klassen opens as pale-skinned young Otilla, lost in a snowy forest after running away, stumbles upon a mansion inhabited by a talking skull. Somber, digitally finished graphite and ink artwork imbues the forest and the mansion with shadowy verticality. The skull greets Otilla from a window with an uncomfortable but dryly funny proposition: "I will come down and let you in, but only if you promise to carry me once I do. I am just a skull, and rolling around is difficult for me." Otilla agrees, and the skull shows her the abandoned home's rooms, its bottomless pit, and its tall tower. Confiding as they go, the skull eventually mentions the headless skeleton that pursues it each night. Otilla falls easily into a caretaking role as the two eat pears, dance, and bed down in relative safety. When the skeleton appears, Otilla moves with an imaginatively cold-blooded finality that reflects both characters' desire not to be pursued. Echoes of other forbidding fairy tales pervade this high-stakes telling, in which Otilla's primal bravery and sly wit result in an arc from flight to mutual reliance. An author's note concludes. Ages 6–9.
