John Patience

The story of Goldilocks and the three bears was never one of my favourite folktales, since it centres on a spoiled little girl who thinks she can take what she wants and doesn’t get into any trouble for her bad behaviour, but I couldn’t resist picking up this edition of it for my collection of John Patience books. His unique tales of Rainbow’s End were what made me fall in love with his work, and while his reimagining of classic fairy and folk tales might not have the same whimsy I do show more enjoy the personalized touches that he brings to each story. His end papers are always a standout feature which I enjoy, utilizing a bright marbled background with silhouettes that remind me of Arthur Rackham that make me excited to get into the tale - this time depicting an active scene with all three bears gamboling in the forest with Goldilocks semi-concealed in the forest trees. As we enter the story itself, he switches artistic styles, introducing us to the picturesque (and expected) character of Goldilocks, who sits beside her colourful forest-side homestead depicted in Patience’s signature detailed watercolour style. The Goldilocks character is nothing less than expected, and I don’t feel like he was particularly inspired to give her a unique or personable look, but the scenery makes us want to disappear into her tale entirely. Once the family of bears are introduced (after we see the spoiled girl destroy their home and breakfast…) we see Patience’s careful attention to character detail return. Each bear has a distinctly identifiable character and he anthropomorphizes them well without getting too cliche. As the three march back to their house we can even see how tired and ready for their breakfast they are (and maybe a quick nap in their beds or rest in their respective chairs), which does a lot to heighten the storytelling past the simplistic narration that Patience writes to accompany his illustrations. As the three discover the mess that Goldilocks has created, we can clearly see their frustration, but upon discovery of the girl fast asleep they are nothing less than unsurprised. Have they had previous visits from the girl? Maybe, but as she runs away before they can really confront her we’ll never know the real story going on behind the scenes and are left to wonder how the bears really felt as they cleaned up the mess of her visit. As for Goldilocks, Patience says that she learned her lesson and never went exploring in the forest ever again, so we hope that she leaves her ursine neighbours to themselves! show less

The classic French fairy-tale of Beauty and the Beast is given a fairly generic interpretation in this picture-book adaptation retold and illustrated by John Patience, and published by bargain-book press Derrydale Books. I'm not sure where I picked it up - on a dollar cart near work, I expect - and I'm honestly not sure why I keep it.

The narrative here has some odd quirks - Beauty seems nastier than in any other version I have read, actually telling the Beast that he is "so ugly" in this show more version (in the traditional version she tells him that while he is not handsome, he has a good heart, which is more than many better-looking men can boast), and deliberately ignoring a dream in which she is admonished to look past appearances - while the artwork has a cartoonish quality that doesn't appeal to me greatly. The decorative endpapers, with silhouettes that remind me a bit of the work of Jan Pienkowski, are the only feature I like (I think they are why I bought the book in the first place), but they're hardly enough to save the entire project. In sum: this is one I'd recommend only to Beauty and the Beast completists. show less

This was a cute book, but I didn’t like it as much as I did Patience’s version of Cinderella. He utilizes the same blend of illustration and collage, but to a much lesser extent due to the nature of the scenery and characters - more outdoors backgrounds and fewer big costumes beside the Piper’s. The only illustration which I thought was really successful on a more than basic level was the frontispiece which shows the Piper leading Hamelin’s children away. This piece shows the show more characters in black silhouette against a startlingly bright illustrated background, creating a contrasting scene which seems to lead readers into the story alongside the path of the children and Piper. This illustration blocks out the major characters of the story, which is an unorthodox technique, but this too creates a mystery for the reader who now wants to find out what happens in the story. The shadowy characters also foreshadow the darker tone in the story itself, which is told with little mincing of words. We see the rats brutally drowned off Hamelin’s harbour pier and the greed of the town’s leaders is apparent, which leads up to the Piper’s theft of the town’s children - seemingly without care. The Piper character is always a mysterious one, as he enters the town with little fanfare and no personal or background details are given, but Patience’s straightforward description of his actions does nothing to soften the character, leaving reader’s with an unease with the events of the story even though the morals are made clear. show less

Not all of John Patience’s adapted classic fairytales are a success (in my opinion), but the story of Rip Van Winkle is a perfect example of his style bending well with the source material to create a wonderful tale. Washington Irving’s setting of the Catskill Mountains is brought to life by Patience’s classic take on roughly magical woodlands settings, time period perfect costume details, and cast of slightly wizened mountain dwarves. Topped off with a charmingly wrought Rip Van show more Winkle who begins the story as a handsome (if lazy) young man and becomes a bearded oldster, this is easily one of my favourite visual adaptations of the story! show less