If you recall a meme from Jon Klassen’s Twitter account (I refuse to call it X) where he writes, “last year in a library in Alaska I read a folk tale in a random book on a random shelf & have been thinking about it since & today i wrote the librarian w/ no book title or author & in 2 hours i had a scan of the story & cover in my inbox - librarians should be running everything.” THAT book from THAT tweet was the inspiration for THIS book. And it’s ABSOLUTELY TERRIFYING. My take. I am confident though that there are readers who will be delighted by this even darker take on this Tyrolean folktale. And, if you’re like me, you might be saying what the heck is Tyrolean and since this was from a book of folktales in Alaska, in my brain, I had invented a narrative (much like Jon Klassen indicates in the author’s note that he invented a narrative that didn’t actually match the original folktale much at all) that Tyrolean was somehow related to Alaska or northern Canada but no - Tyrolean refers to Austria, more specifically to Tyrol which is a federal state within Austria and I might be betraying my lack of knowledge pertaining to geography that this was new news to me. All that to say, while Klassen’s picture books often have some dark underlying humor weaved into the illustrations or story itself, The Skull is a bit more blatant in the dark and twisty, while it is based on a folk tale, it’s not one I’d heard before. I don’t recommend as a bedtime story but for kids who lean into exploration of skulls and skeletons, this will likely be a huge hit! And for those who want to do a comparison of folk tales, this will offer a new perspective with the inclusion of a Tyrolean folktale. For my personal enjoyment, I love seeing the full circle-ness from public tweet to published book.
Title: The Skull
Author: Jon Klassen
ISBN: 978-1-5362-2336-1
Published 2023 by Candlewick Press
This copy was borrowed from the public library for review purposes.
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