Bearskin

Howard Pyle's original tale combining several classical tropes is interesting enough, if one can enter into the mindset that this world is magic and not everything has to actually make sense. But Oh! TSH's art is gorgeous, and also genius as it tells so much more of the story than the words. Every single character is, no other way to say it, *real* and is also someone I wish I actually knew.

Even the king. Yes, it was bad that he tried to kill the baby that was prophesied to marry his daughter. But he did do two things - first he didn't take it away from the father cold, as he could have done, but rather did pay for it, and second he did come to his senses later on. Again, given the setting, all this was fitting.

Despite the evident talents of the illustrator, whose work is frequently quite good, there was nothing that I could find to like about this book. Derivative, but not in any good way. What was Pyle thinking? From now on, I'll check out his books only for illustrations by him.

This fairy tale written in 1887 by Howard Pyle combines a few elements of other tales, but puts them together with many new elements that create a classic tale with classic motifs. The protagonist is a boy raised by a bear who calls on the bear to get the supplies he needs to kill a dragon and later marry the princess. It is beautifully illustrated, and, as Peter Glassman points out in the afterward, the illustrations combine characters of many races in a natural way, with a harmony we would do well to mirror in the real world.

A book of moral lessons and great art work.

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