Yikes. This is an intense folktale with death, enchanted objects, witchcraft, and an escaped hanging.

The illustrations are beautiful but also creepy.

I’ll be shelving this with some other folktales that might be better suited for highschool study vs story hour or morning time.

I think..there are no “good guys” in this story at all, nor character development.

I think..more suited for 15+ for violence and for lack of a better word, hedgewitchery. ( )

The Tinderbox, illustrated and retold by Barry Moser.

Andersen's tale of an impoverished soldier whose life is transformed by a magical tinderbox is transplanted from mythical Denmark to the mountains of Tennessee in this revisionist retelling by Barry Moser. Wending his way home at the close of the Civil War, Confederate soldier Yoder Ott finds himself a rich man after a surprise encounter with a mountain man. But even wealth can't buy him a glimpse of the beautiful mayor's daughter, Elvira Abernathy. Luckily, Yoder has the tinderbox, and the three supernatural canine servants that come with it...

After being disappointed by Jerry Pinkney's The Nightingale, which transplants Andersen's original tale from China to Morocco, and Deborah Hahn's The Swineherd, in which a bizarrely inappropriate happy ending is provided, I've been feeling rather wary of revisionist fairy-tales of late. How glad I am that I stumbled across Barry Moser's adaptation of The Tinderbox at just this moment, as it has reminded me that it is possible for such projects to be successful - to add a layer to our understanding of, and appreciation for, a given tale.

The theme of the soldier, returning home from war with little or nothing to his name, is one that will be familiar in many cultures, and it's clear that Moser identified this character in The Tinderbox with the history of his own part of the world. I liked that the witch becomes an old mountain man in this version, and that Yoder Ott doesn't intentionally kill him. The illustrations - full page plates facing full page text - are compelling, although I was a little disappointed in Moser's dogs, which look a little too realistic. Where are the oversized eyes? Still, this is a solid retelling, with both narrative and artistic appeal. ( )