THE SEVEN RAVENS

A father curses his seven sons and they turn into ravens in this ever-popular tale. Here the basic ribs of the story remain the same, from the sister's remorse that she, even innocently, was the cause of the brothers' transformation, to her difficult journey, subsequent sacrifice, and salvation. It's an edge-of-the-seat tale and chillingly macabre in Bell's translation, which doesn't fiddle with the scene in which the girl cuts off her finger to use as a key for passage into a glass mountain. Sauvant works in a surreal style, with Magritte-like skies and an obsession with time and space that becomes almost clichÇd. The symbolism of the pictures overwhelms the nuances of the story: When the sister appears with all her fingers in place in the last scene, but no restoration is mentioned in the text, children are likely to read it as a mistake. (Picture book/folklore. 5-8)