The Tinder Box was a cute tale that I really enjoyed! I found it to be one of the better Hans Christian Anderson stories. The themes in this tale were very intelligent and I was surprised at how much I liked it despite it not being one of the more well known stories. I would love to see an adaption of this story somehow if there isn't already one. Amazing! Four out of five stars! ( )

If there's a moral to this story, I can't figure out what it is. ( )

I had a visceral reaction to this book, both in the story and the scariness of the illustrations. It is a story lacking ethics and, in my opinion, not for children.

When a weary soldier walks many miles in his threadbare shoes, he comes upon a wicked, totally evil looking witch. She promises treasure if he will allow her to hold a rope while slowly pulling him downward into a hole in a tree.

Each succeeding room is larger and the treasures are guarded by increasingly larger wolf-like dogs.

After accumulating the treasures, he kills the witch by chopping off her snake-like head. He goes on his merry way with no remorse. He rapidly spends the wealth and then discovers that the dogs can help him in succeeding to garner more treasure. He meets and marries a lovely maiden and lives happily ever after.

Is the moral of the story that good deeds go unrewarded, and that there are nasty people in the world who succeed?

The sepia-like drawings render the images frightening looking with a sense of foreboding evil. ( )

A children's story from Hans Christian Andersen matched with exquisite illustrations from Bagram Ibatoulline equals a bedtime marvel for child and adult alike. The artwork is simply fantastic and it is worth it just to get this book to look at the finely detailed illustrations. The layout is very clean, which makes it easy viewing for every reader.

I collect children's books that have excellent art, but the storytelling is just as good, keeping it simple and short for the youngster. This is a volume for wet and cold and wintry nights, when magic might be swirling outside the windows.


Book Season = Winter ( )

The Tinderbox, illustrated by Bagram Ibatoulline.

When The Tinderbox was first published in the nineteenth century - together in booklet form with Little Claus and Big Claus, The Princess and the Pea, and Little Ida's Flowers - it was not well received by critics, who disliked Andersen's informal prose and (perceived) lack of morals. Despite this early discouragement, Andersen continued to write his fairy-tales, which are today some of the most well-known stories of their kind.

Ironically, given my usual impatience with those who insist that fairy-tales must have some overt moral, I find that I too have ethical objections to The Tinderbox, and think its depiction of the old witch - and her murder at the hands of the soldier - quite disturbing. Still, Andersen's story is well-told, never failing to draw me into its eerie world of underground treasure, and supernatural dog-servants with their spooky, outsized eyes. Bagram Ibatoulline, who also illustrated Andersen's The Nightingale and Thumbelina, really captures the creepy nastiness of the tale with his ink and watercolor illustrations. The witch is superbly grotesque, the dogs frightening, but oddly endearing. The color scheme, with its muted browns and grays, seems ideally suited to accentuate the gloom of the narrative. In short: these illustrations are so brilliant that they almost convince me to love the tale. Almost. ( )