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10 views3 pages

Project Muse 900329

Uploaded by

Cia Ran
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© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
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The Skull: A Tyrolean Folktale by Jon Klassen (review)

Kate Quealy-Gainer

Bulletin of the Center for Children's Books, Volume 76, Number 11,
July/August 2023, pp. 353-354 (Review)

Published by Johns Hopkins University Press


DOI: https://doi.org/10.1353/bcc.2023.a900329

For additional information about this article


https://muse.jhu.edu/article/900329

[41.77.16.154] Project MUSE (2024-06-23 16:29 GMT)


July/August 2023 • 353

The Big Picture

The Skull: A Tyrolean Folktale


written and illus. by Jon Klassen

It’s a readerly rite of passage to begin to notice the darker undertones of familiar
stories, to prod gently at the edges of uncertainty with the assurance that the book
can be closed at any time. Klassen has proved especially good at introducing new,
often solo, young readers to the unsettling but intriguing place where fear becomes
an essential narrative element, offering enough humor and absurdity to provide
comfort on the journey. Such is the case with The Skull, a reimagining of a Tyrolean
folktale that shows a young girl’s resolve against unnamed, unexplained threats.
The book opens with a menacingly simple statement: “One night, in the
middle of the night, while everyone else was asleep, Otilla finally ran away.” Fleeing
from an unknown danger, Otilla stumbles through the forest, eventually coming
to a large house. Upon knocking, she is greeted by a skull—bodiless—who allows
her to stay if she will carry him around (“I am just a skull, and rolling around is
difficult for me”). The skull is an affable tour guide as the two wander through the
house, eating pears in the garden room, dancing in the ballroom, and visiting the
dungeon with its bottomless pit. When dusk comes, the skull asks Otilla to stay
to protect him from the headless skeleton that comes to chase him nightly. Sure
enough, the headless skeleton does appear, but Otilla goes several steps beyond
merely protecting the skull: she pushes the skeleton over a ledge, smashes and
burns its bones, and then tosses the ashes down the bottomless pit. It’s a grim act
of violence, but it guarantees the skull’s and Otilla’s safety, and when dawn breaks,
golden and soft, readers are assured these two wounded souls will now begin the
work of healing each other and creating their own happy ending.
Klassen admits in the afterward that his version takes a much darker path
than the original iteration, in which the skull turns into a benevolent woman who
bestows gifts upon the young child. There is, perhaps, a similar sense of generosity
in Otilla’s protective act for the skull, but it’s clear her motivation for getting rid
of the skeleton is not just from her desire to save the skull but is also catharsis for
her fear and, notably, her rage. Readers never learn what or who is chasing Otilla,
but considering she’s willing to stay with a rolling skull in a strange and dangerous
house, it must be pretty bad; neither is it revealed what separated the skull from
its body and why the skull would like to keep it that way. Of course, it wouldn’t be
Klassen without a dash of the absurd. Ottila’s casual acceptance of a talking skull
and her willingness to feed him pears (that go right through him to the floor) and
hold him just so to dance keeps an irreverent thread running through the mostly
solemn tale.
354 • The Bulletin

Klassen’s familiar graphite and ink art underscores a sense of malevolence,


with ever-present shadows haunting the edges of the pages, threatening to overtake
any warm tones, and the harsh angles of shrouded trees and darkened doorways
loom over the two friends. Otilla’s eyes are shockingly bright and center each
scene, moving subtly but conveying a range of emotion: terror, relief, affection,
and a surprising amount of anger, simmering at first and then openly reflected in
the flames she uses to burn the skeleton. Her contented expression as she sips tea
while watching the fire is both disquieting and satisfying. Meanwhile, round and
helpless, the skull nestles comfortably in Otilla’s enveloping arms, clueing readers
quickly into their developing dynamic: Otilla has become the guardian and caretaker,
providing the protection that it seems was never given to her.
The unknowns of Otilla’s and the skull’s experiences, who they were and
where they came from, make a compelling draw for young readers, but that mystery
remains unsolved. Instead, the book offers a lesson on the usefulness of fear and
likely a reminder of what kids already suspect: the world can be awful and scary,
but empathy and friendship can arise from its darkest places.

—Kate Quealy-Gainer, Editor

New Books for Children and Young People

Allen, Sarah The Nightmare House. Farrar, 2023 [272p]


Trade ed. ISBN 9780374390952 $17.99
E-book ed. ISBN 9780374390969 $10.99
Reviewed from digital galleys R Gr. 4-6
Penny was a different girl years ago, before she encountered the Fear Maker, a red-
eyed man with monstrous intent. She is now a haunted eleven-year-old, writing
down her awful nightmares as poems and hoping that someone, anyone, else will
help the increasing numbers of hollow-eyed people appearing around her. Unfor-
tunately, it comes down to Penny (along her bold, loyal new friend Aarush and a
mysterious gardener with some pointed advice) to stop the oily, charismatic horror
that is the Fear Maker, who has moved beyond her dreams into her waking life and
is now threatening the world, one soul at a time. Penny desperately needs a friend,
and Aarush is an undeniable support in her life, but the crux of this novel lies in
Penny and the Fear Maker. The two are inextricably tied to one another, linked
through years of nightmares and now both occupying a space that can only hold

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