Beautiful Book #16

The Frog Prince or Iron Henry by Jacob and Wilhelm Grimm. Illustrated by Binette Schroeder. Translated by Naomi Lewis. North South Books, 1989.

German illustrator, Binette Schroeder published her first of many children's books, Lupinchen, in 1969, and, lucky for us, a number of them have been translated into English--not that you would need a translation of the text to appreciate her art. The translation serves merely to put the books in our North American hands. Fantastical, atmospheric and funny, her art makes you feel as if you are looking at a world of saturated colour right at the moment of twilight when anything might become possible. I am partial to her take on The Frog Prince because it walks the line between horror and humour, and it uses vertical page space to play with perspective and scale in interesting ways.

You'll have to track down the book to see the charming moment when the Prince leaps merrily into his new bride's bed--it's so worth it. In the meantime, I've included a couple of images here to entice you, and I strongly encourage you to do a Google image search on Binette Schroeder's name so you can appreciate a more fulsome range of her art.