illustrations, set i;

[fated_bliss]

Earlier this year, littleforest and I decided to take a trip down to the neighbourhood library. We sat ourselves down in front of the children's fairy tale sections hunting down books on Japanese folklore, and turned up a whole lot of other gems in the process. Here are some of them, because I love children's books illustrations, and I thought I'd share some

Comments

[agentlerain]

I saw that exact same book of The Snow Queen and I couldn't leave it in the store. I spent a good hour just sitting there, looking over the pictures and re-reading the story again.

I can't think of any Andersen story that's happy. :( The Little Match Girl, the Tin Soldier... tragic.

[fated_bliss]

!! So you've read it. I loved the illustrations so much. I only returned it to the library when I'd finished scanning in my favourites (: The artist also illustrated for other editions of HP, apparently.

Neither can I, in retrospect. There's The Little Mermaid too. And omg, The Tin Soldier... that is one of the saddest and loveliest ever. Why is Andersen like this?

[agentlerain]

I bought it and now it sits on my bookshelf. I'd actually picked it up from one of those big everything-and-anything stores. :D Wow, HP eh? Mmm. Must go and check out more of his work...

I've always thought that line about Kay and Gerda was very beautiful. Well, I guess unlike you I saw the growing up as a positive? Sort of a transition, much like from Winter to Spring, to growth and life for the two of them in their shared relationship and life. ;3

Oh yes. ;__; The Little Mermaid. The foam... Maybe he wanted fairytales to be realistic? Or were they written for an older audience? I think I read somewhere that he used to write literature but no one read it, and only his children's stories became famous.

[fated_bliss]

Aw, wish I could afford buying children's books!

I do see the growing up as positive, too (: there're always two faces to a coin. But for me it was rather bittersweet because they had lost something along the way, and I think Kay and Gerda's relationship through the story is actually symbolic of very not-so-'childist' issues... There is something raw and painful about the way they both turned out. I am not able to articulate this properly yet, I really have to brood on it a bit more.

Ah, I see. (: I've only read criticism on there being too much morbidity and pathos in his stories - such that they're questionable material for children. =/

[windstalks]

Did you scan these yourselves? Very nice (:

[fated_bliss]

Haha, yes, I did. They took me more than an hour to upload =/

[essoufflee]

Oh wow lovely illustrations!

[drakulya]

Beautiful illustrations! The detail is just... out of this world. I have some Anderson stories in Chinese, they're all very thought-provoking and were one of the few collections of books that I really sat down and read when I was young.