Exquisite retelling of this bittersweet fairy tale with gorgeous art and poetic prose. One of my favorite paintings is that of the raven in the desert - so luxuriuos in color. ( )

This particular fairy tale is a favorite of mine, and the beautiful illustrations in this retelling are worth a look. However, it veers from the traditional story in a pretty substantial way, and that's the part that leaves me disgruntled. ( )

A young girl, the daughter of refugees, is taken away by a mysterious and magical polar bear in this novelized retelling of the classic Norwegian tale of East of the Sun, West of the Moon. Eventually reconciled to her life in his enchanted palace, where she comes to love the bear, the girl is permitted to return home for a visit. Here, despite the bear's warnings, the girl allows herself to spend some time alone with her mother, who gives her something that will allow her to see the shadowy figure who, when darkness falls, sleeps beside her in the bear's palace. When a prince is revealed, the truth comes out: a thousand years ago he had been cursed by the Troll Queen, because he refused to marry her daughter. Only the love of a young woman, who willingly lived with him for a year and a day, and who only ever saw him in bear form, would set him free. Now bound to the Troll Princess, the girl's love disappears, leaving her to travel the world, seeking him in the castle which stands east of the sun and west of the moon...

I absolutely love Jackie Morris' artwork, which always has a fairy-tale feeling for me, so when I learned that the British author/illustrator had tried her hand at a novel-length retelling of one of my favorite stories - East of the Sun, West of the Moon - I was eager to track it down. Unfortunately, although I found the writing here poetic and poignant, and the illustrations simply beautiful, the ending of this retelling of East of the Sun, West of the Moon felt so off to me, that it ruined my pleasure in the book. In this retelling, the girl, whose name is revealed only toward the end of the story, falls in love with the heartless North Wind, and although she rescues the imprisoned prince, in the end she elects not to stay with him choosing the "freedom" of the wind instead. The book closes as she is transformed into a snowy hawk, soaring aloft. Now, while I have no problem per se with the idea of changing the endings of fairy and folk tales, this conclusion somehow felt completely tone deaf to me. It puts love and freedom into opposing camps, which, although perhaps true - love does bind one, in both physical and emotional ways - rather misses the point. There is no love, without some sacrifice of freedom, because love connects and binds us to the object of our love. Interestingly, so does hatred. To my way of thinking, the only way to be completely free, is to be alone. But this outcome, and Morris' ending, seems a betrayal of the entire point of this story, in which a woman heroically traverses the world, to reconnect with her love. The object of her quest is not to be alone and free, but to love and be loved - to be connected.

The ending here was a real disappointment, made all the more intense by my enjoyment of everything about this book, right up until the very end. Despite my feelings about this one, I still plan to read Morris' retelling of another of my favorites - Hans Christian Andersen's The Wild Swans - hoping that I enjoy that ending more than this. With the caveat that they be aware that this has a dramatically different ending, from the traditional one, I would recommend this to fans of fairy-tale fiction, as well as to admirers of Jackie Morris' artwork. ( )

Schitterend boek om op een idyllische plek je te laten terugvoeren naar de sprookjeswereld van toen. De pen van Morris weet in enkele trekken een ziel te steken in de figuren die de magische wereld bevolken. Een sprookje bovendien met een volwassen einde. ( )

Illustrations and storyline were beautiful, but she falls for the north wind, and just walks away from the polar bear prince who she walks across the world for, and he for her? She made sacrifices and so did he, she saved him from the troll princess, and then walks away to be with a wind who's not even there? What sort of ending is this? Why? This is not love, it's stupidity! ( )