Please excuse me. I wrote this during a bout of insomnia, and it has been sitting in my drafts to deal with for a long time. I’m posting it as is, because I’m just not up to proof reading it....
It’s a pity I can’t dig out my copy of the children’s picture book Petronella by Jay Williams, illustrated by Friso Henstra in my edition. I really am in the mood to talk about it.
I fell in love with the book from reading and rereading it from a library, but it took forever to hunt it down as an adult. I had vivid memories of images and moments but could not for the life of me remember the title as more than “Something-ella”.
When I finally figured it out I was surprised to discover it was written by the same person that wrote another childhood favorite. The King and His Six Friends. Funny how that happens. As a little girl I had adored the Golden Book The Sailor Dog, and didn’t realize Garth Williams also illustrated my beloved Stuart Little. At about 7 I was drawn to the cover of a Batman Family comic, and though I never saw another issue (the joys of convience store spinner racks) the comic made a huge impression on me. I was a bit starteled to discover many years later that that cover that pulled me in was by an artist That had become a fave of mine, Michael Kaluta. I guess it proves that tastes aren’t bound up to knowing the identity of the creator, and can be surprisingly consistant as we age.
Anyway, Petronella is the story of a girl that sets out to rescue a prince held captive by a sorcerer. She is clever and brave, succeeding partly through the use of magical objects (a comb that transforms into a forest, that sort of thing) while being persude by the the sorcerer. In the end it turns out the prince isn’t all that wonderful, and the sorcerer isn’t a baddie, despite the ominous black costume with mask accessory. It’s a heroine with a sword who gets the cool guy, not some useless spoiled prince!
You can certainly tell why I would love it! THIS was my idea of a fairy tale heroine! She gets the quest, rescues the prince and wins the heart of a better guy in the process. She was living my dream! LOL
As for the illustrations, I was captivated by the artistic style. I’m trying to think of how to describe it. It was a sort of art fashion you see coming out of the 1960s into the 1970s. It reminds me, somehow, of films like Fantastic Planet and Yellow Submarine of similar vintage. It takes something of antique engravings for the use of lines. Here the fashions set in the era of those sideways bicorne (think Napoleon) hats, so let’s call it 1800-ish. The images haunted my imagination.
Yeah, I know without excerpts or images from the book this post is kinda useless...
