Elizabeth Winthrop

3.5 stars. I started out thinking this would be a medieval version of the Indian in the Cupboard, but it was a lot better than that.

William is a boy desperate to keep things the way they are. He loves his nanny and doesn’t want her to leave. Unfortunately, he doesn’t have a lot of say in the matter. He’s a bit of a spoiled kid to be honest, refusing to accept that his favorite person’s world doesn’t revolve around him, as well as refusing to see how his parents (especially his show more dad) are trying to be more a part of his life. When he finds a magical knight in the castle his nanny gives him, he hatches an idea that only a young child could conceive of and actually consider worth completing.

This decision immediately causes regret, which leads to the biggest adventure William could possibly imagine. To save his nanny, he has join her in the trouble that he’s caused, and undo a curse he didn’t cause.
The quest and the action happens pretty quickly and is of typical fairy tale fare, but the point is made well. He listens to the wisdom given to him by the silver knight and his beloved nanny, and learns to trust in his ability to do what seems impossible, ultimately saving the day.

What irks me about this story, and others like it, is the multiple times it explicitly states that William was able to do this huge thing “by himself.” There is a measure of the resolution of the story that couldn’t have happened without William’s choice to take action and move forward on his own, even when he was expecting to have help. It’s an essential part of growing up, learning self-reliance and that you won’t always have adults or others to rely on, perhaps even in difficult and dangerous times. The tricky thing here is to not conflate this with thinking that he got to this place of maturity on his own and was able to rely on himself entirely throughout. The only thing that he was able to do 100% on his own was to come up with the crazy idea that led to the need for a quest in the first place. It was because of the training and wisdom given to him by people who are grown and have the experience needed to guide him in his path that he ultimately felt able to do what he needed to do. He learned a lot along the way, but it was with the help and by the design of those who had come before him.

There is a lot to like about this book - it’s fun and full of good life lessons, but I think I would only give or read it to my kids with the intent of discussing the ideas of self-reliance and interdependence. show less

Author/illustrator team Elizabeth Winthrop and Charles Mikolaycak, who also collaborated on A Child Is Born: The Christmas Story, turn here to the story of Easter. Winthrop adapts texts from the Gospel of Matthew and the Gospel of Luke in her telling, which begins with the Passover feast, and continues on through the betrayal of Jesus, the trial before Pilate, and the Crucifixion, before culminating with the Resurrection...

I read He Is Risen: The Easter Story directly after Brian Wildsmith's show more gorgeous The Easter Story, and the two books present an interesting contrast, when it comes to how to approach this tale, when retelling it for children. Winthrop's text here is far more Biblical than the Wildsmith telling, which is much simpler, and imagines the story from a donkey's perspective. Textually, I think this one would work far better for somewhat older children, who are ready for the more advanced vocabulary and sentence structure. The sepia-toned artwork here from Mikolaycak is more historical than the stylized Wildsmith paintings, and beautiful in its own right, although I found that I preferred the latter. I think my ideal Easter story picture-book would pair Wildsmith's artwork with a slightly simplified version of the text here. I like the idea of staying as faithful to the Bible accounts as possible, but somehow the text felt a little too advanced for a picture-book of this kind. Still, many parents and Sunday School teachers specifically looking for more Biblical Easter retellings, should find this one of interest, and it is to them that I would recommend it, as well as to fans of Charles Mikolaycak's artwork. show less

An odd story in a lot of ways, but very enjoyable.The oddest thing was the way the fantastic and the mundane mixed - things like, in the middle of his quest, while he was being the fool for the villain, he thought how all the tumbling he was doing would have him in excellent shape for his gymnastics meet. He accepted Sir Simon very easily too. So this is a) a very ordinary story about a kid with two working parents, who has had a nurse/babysitter all his life and she's now leaving, and how show more he deals with that; b) a fantasy about a knight and a quest (complete with tasks, helping others helps you, and so on); and c) a quite explicit self-realization and finding oneself and coming of age story, with lines like 'the strength was always within you'. And the three mesh quite reasonably well. Not a strong favorite, but a good story. show less

A little book about a kid trying to comfort or reach out to her mom, who is sad (and actually appears to be clinically depressed). She tries everything she can think of -- drawing, dancing, singing -- but nothing helps her mom feel better. Finally she offers to go away and her mom says no! that would make her cry. They hug, and the mom says that makes her feel better.[return][return]Clearly the book was written out of great sensitivity for children experiencing the depression or grieving of show more an adult in their life. There don't seem to be a lot of books on the topic of helping a little one deal with her grown-ups' feelings, so this is useful in facilitating those discussions. [return][return]However, the reader's heart aches for the little girl who tries everything, to no avail, and with very little explanation. When reading it to my 3.5yo, I understood why the mom in the story might say that the song made her even sadder, but how to explain that to my own child? [return][return]I could wish that there was a little more help in the story itself for the little girl, and some resources or discussion at the end for the adults reading this to their kids. show less