CHARLOTTE & CHARLES

by Ann Tompert ‧ RELEASE DATE: Nov. 9, 1980

An insinuating demi-fable about two chinless, lumpish-looking giants whose island home is settled by ships full of regular-sized people. Though Charles warns that ""Sooner or later people always turn against us,"" Charlotte longs for company; and so the two descend from their mountain chateau and help the settlers in every possible way. Sure enough though, when the people decide they want the giants' home for a meeting house, they do turn against them. Their plot to destroy the giants backfires and destroys their village instead--and Charlotte, safe with Charles on a new, much smaller island, goes on hoping for new people who might just be different from all the others. Tompert's recognizably honest depiction of the people's behavior makes a startling contrast to the more usual trumped-up happy ending; and Charlotte's wistful, closing expression of faith (or at least hope) in humanity says all that there is to be said without rib-nudging or manipulation. Wallner's illustrations are just as unobtrusively accomplished, and in a way, just as unsettling. His playing off of the people's size differences and his views of the island and village from the giants' perspective is effective without being crass or tricky; and his colors are as lovely and child-pleasing as ever-and oddly out of synch, or so it would seem, with the giants' doltish appearance. But then, pretty giants wouldn't bring readers' own prejudices into the picture, now would they? How much of this will filter through to the picture book audience? Who knows. It's not the sort of effect you can test in a question-and-answer follow-up.

Pub Date: Nov. 9, 1980

ISBN: N/A

Page Count: -

Publisher: Crown

Review Posted Online: N/A

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 1, 1980

Categories: CHILDREN'S