#186 of 1001 · February 2, 2021

There is a startling blend of misfortune, poverty, greed, violence, malady, and death in Master Snickup’s Cloak by Alexander Theroux and Brian Froud. A good-hearted pauper in the medieval Dutch town of Sleutel falls into gloom and despair when his new bride is lured away by a wealthy boor with the gift of gold and the promise of social standing. Wrapped only in his blue cloak (a wedding gift from his estranged sweetheart), he wanders away and maroons himself on a saltswept sea stack, where he remains in constant prayer. The young man’s immense piety attracts a host of vicious devils who hex his body with disease and infest his cloak with vermin. After he dies, a rat flea from his cloak takes wing and returns to the mainland, where its virulence soon spreads to become the Black Death itself. Theroux’s writing reveals itself in layers: a veneer of wry comedy, then a band of grim horror, and finally a fundament of unflinching truth, all laced with arcane wordplay and biting irony. With a muted color palette, Froud cheerfully depicts cruelty both supernatural and all too human. You may well perceive the story’s treatment of its subject matter as rather bleak, particularly for the picture book medium. I quite agree. But for mature and prepared readers there is a searing social and historical honesty at the heart of this work, waiting to be confronted, digested, and remembered. #medieval #middleages #dutch #plague #death #book #books #childrensbooks #beautifulbook #beautifulbooks #beautifulbookcover #beautifulbookcovers #picturebook #picturebooks #picturebookillustration #picturebookart #childrensbookillustration #childrensliterature #illustration #kidlit #kidsbooks #bookworm #booklover #booklovers #bibliophile #bookstagram #bookstagrammer #bookstagrammers #instabook #instabooks