#971 of 1001 · March 29, 2023

Marianna Mayer and Winslow Pels collaborate on a handsome adaptation of the Brothers Grimm tale Iron John. A young prince named Hans frees a wild man from a cage in his father’s courtyard. Fearing punishment, he flees to the forest. The wild man becomes his guardian and eventually helps him win a fierce battle and a challenging tournament for the hand of a princess. Mayer crafts an elegant text, while Pels employs large-scale compositions that evoke the flattened perspective of medieval art. A note for folklore enthusiasts: Mayer keeps the architecture of the plot contained in the story included by Brothers Grimm in the sixth edition of Kinder- und Hausmärchen (1850). Into that structure she weaves numerous additional details. For example, the young prince is now named Hans (taken from the Grimms’ title “Iron Hans”). Instead of a king under a magic spell, the wild man is now a guise of the wizard Merlin himself. #iron #forest #woods #wild #man #king #prince #magic #book #books #childrensbooks #beautifulbooks #picturebook #picturebooks #picturebookillustration #picturebookart #childrensbookillustration #childrensliterature #illustration #kidlit #kidsbooks #bookworm #booklover #booklovers #bibliophile #bookstagram #bookstagrammer #bookstagrammers #instabook #instabooks