Bound To Stay Bound

School Library Journal - 05/01/1999 K-Gr 4-The appeal of this tale is as strong today as it was 150 years ago, and Pinkney has done an admirable job of repackaging it for a new generation. His adaptation of the text succeeds in capturing the gentleness and melancholy of Andersen, although a bit of the social commentary has gone by the wayside. Pinkney does not shy away from including the more disturbing elements, such as the shooting of the geese, recognizing this episode's importance to the fabric of the story. The first glimpse he gives readers of the duckling, having at long last emerged from his shell, exhausted and vulnerable despite his size, foreshadows the events to come and immediately engages children's sympathy. Naturalists will quibble over the artist's choice of birds. This duckling is born into a mallard family, wild, not domestic, and the geese are Canadas, whose range is generally North America. However, these details do not in any way detract from the feast to the eye that these illustrations are, carefully composed and rich in detail. Even those owning The Ugly Duckling as told by Marianna Mayer, illustrated by Thomas Locker (Macmillan, 1987; o.p.)-the most recent Duckling of note-will welcome this fresh new version. An artistic tour de force that is worthy of its graceful fine-feathered subject.-Grace Oliff, Ann Blanche Smith School, Hillsdale, NJ Copyright 1999 Cahners Business Information. - Copyright 1999 Publishers Weekly, Library Journal and/or School Library Journal used with permission.

Bulletin for the Center... - 03/01/1999 Pinkney’s adaptation of Andersen’s arguably best-loved tale is illustrated with joyfully bucolic watercolors that give this old story new life. Double-page spreads are crowded with the lushness of the natural world as the illustrations follow the sadly hapless duckling on his quest for self-realization. Pinkney’s talent for evocative natural landscapes is at the forefront here, and the tale provides the opportunity to illustrate each season in lovingly rendered detail. The watercolors ably capture the downy gray and spindly little fowl as he travels from heartbreak to heartbreak; the closing spread of the ugly duckling turned graceful swan set against the waterside greenery and lilac bushes is satisfyingly triumphant. This is an elegantly accessible retelling, with illustrations full of lively, emotive animals and the kind of vigorous movement that young children are bound to find appealing. Make room on your shelves for this classic rendering of a classic tale. - Copyright 1999 The Board of Trustees of the University of Illinois.

Booklist - 03/01/1999 *Starred Review* Like his illustrations for Patricia McKissack's Mirandy and Brother Wind (1989), Pinkney's joyful watercolors set his adaptation of Hans Christian Andersen's classic story in an old-fashioned pastoral world. The gorgeous double-page spreads combine realistic light-filled scenes of farmyard and pond life with a focus on one small bird who doesn't fit in, an awkward creature who appears to disrupt the natural harmony but is really part of the wonder of connection and renewal. Andersen's story has inspired outsiders for more than 150 years, and Pinkney tells it here with stirring drama. From the moment the bird hatches out of the egg, he is a monstrous big duckling, pecked by the other birds, taunted even by his brothers and sisters, kicked by the girl who feeds him. He steals away to a marshy place, escapes hunters and their dogs, can't fit in with kindly humans and their pets. Watching a beautiful flock of swans flying south, he yearns to fly high with them; instead, he endures cold and hunger and cruelty through the long winter. A heartrending picture shows him caught fast in the ice, alone, in a still, desolate landscape. In glorious contrast is the climactic scene in spring when he flies to join the swans in the water, looks down to see his reflection, and finds not dull feathers and an awkward skinny neck but a bird of regal beauty. The final picture of the great swan in the water with blooming flowers, leaping fish, and a hovering dragonfly, is a triumph of delicacy and strength, harmony and grace. - Copyright 1999 Booklist.

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