Fairy Tales: King Arthur & Trina Schart Hyman

I mention in A-Z List 5 (about picture books) that I am a fan of Trina Schart Hyman to whom "I will return when I review fairy tales/folklore."

And here I am! 

Trina Schart Hyman did multiple Arthur picture books with Margaret Hodges. Although I love the illustrations, I'm not a big fan of the books as picture books. There's far too much exposition, which passages frankly have a "dumped in the middle of gorgeous illustrations" feel to them. 

However, there is one Hodges/Hyman picture book that I like as itself. 

Merlin and the Making of the King, retold by Margaret Hodges, illustrated by Trina Schart Hyman

The book is actually an easy reader. There is an illustration about every 2 to 3 pages. The illustrations are appropriate to the text and medium.

Similar to Hodge's and Hyman's St. George and the Dragon, the pages and illustrations use borders reminiscent of medieval manuscripts. The text is straight-forward. I'm not overly fond of Malory's version of King Arthur; Hodges does a decent job honing in on the salient points without cloaking the darker aspects.

There are fewer opportunities for Hyman's dragons and other fierce beasts. (Hodges and Hyman may have won the Caldecott Medal for St. George on the strength of the dragon alone--see below.) However, the images run from quiet settings to red-sky conflict to Arthur's death.  The result is a lush production that holds together rather than an uneven production that comes off as cobbled together.

One fascinating point about Hyman is that although she sticks to Celts and Anglo-Saxons in her books with Hodges, in later ones, her cast of characters are far more heterogeneous. I quite like it. I should mention that I do think that people who wanted the live-action Little Mermaid to be the Little Mermaid they knew from the animated feature had valid artistic reasons for their opinion: visualization is a huge part of art. 

However, I think fairy tales and folk tales are about trying out stories in different ways, from strict retellings to fantastical/surreal approaches to "how about" experiments. My position isn't political. I've felt this way from the moment I started experimenting with fairy tale roles as a kid. When I was a teen, I saw a outdoor production of Romeo & Juliet with my family. The Juliet was Asian; her parents very much weren't. The lack of continuity bothered people in my family entirely for continuity reasons. I didn't care. At all. (I didn't think it was jarring; I didn't think it was forward-thinking. I really didn't care.) She was Juliet because the program said so and that's how her character behaved. I'd figure out the backstory myself later.  

My open-mindedness here goes both ways. So, yes, I think white people can play Asian characters and vice versa.