THE TOUCHSTONE

by Robert Louis Stevenson ‧ RELEASE DATE: Sept. 1, 1976

A high-principled and high-sounding fable about a man, young at the start, who spends his life seeking the true touchstone that a priest/king demands in return for his kingdom and his daughter--who, says the pilgrim, ""makes my mouth to sing and my heart enlarge."" When he finds it--a plain pebble that simply lights up all the other, false touchstones which had palled in each other's light--he discovers that his younger brother had long ago taken the prize by submitting a mirror as the true one. Still, the brother and his wife are not happy and the hero has his pebble to take ""forth into the world."" We found Stevenson's smug moral stance and his pseudo-biblical prose at odds with his message; and the sententious foreword by one Isabel Wright, M.D., merely amplifies the impression of sounding brass. The same straining after transcendent illumination is evident in Shulevitz's hollow, high contrast pen-and-ink drawings--though his hero, intentionally or not, has a queer, tipped look that undercuts his straight-arrow characterization.

Pub Date: Sept. 1, 1976

ISBN: N/A

Page Count: -

Publisher: Greenwillow/Morrow

Review Posted Online: N/A

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 1976

Categories: CHILDREN'S