lection

the skull

19 october 2023

I review a lot of vintage children's books here, but rarely newer ones unless they win an award. I ought to read more brand-new children's books without regard to awards. For instance, whether or not Jon Klassen's The Skull (2023) wins any awards, it is an original and very appealing scary/comforting picture book that deserves a place on children's bookshelves. I have already read it to a two-year-old, and it certainly held her attention, though I don't know yet if she's going to become a big fan.

The Skull, Klassen explains, is based on a Tyrolean folktale, though he says that he found it "in a library in Alaska" (104). In Klassen's retelling, a little girl named Otilla befriends a skull. The skull can talk, and is old and wise; but being bodiless, he can't get around very well. He and Otilla complement each other nicely.

Otilla and the skull explore his spacious if somewhat decrepit house. There is only one drawback: at night a headless skeleton comes out searching for its long-lost skull.

The skeleton seems pretty scary, though my two-year-old test reader wasn't that impressed by it. It's Halloween time, after all, and the streets and shops are full of skulls and skeletons. In any case, Otilla makes short work of the skeleton. She most definitively reduces the old bones to a condition where they're not going to bother her friend the skull anymore.

One of the nicest touches in the book is a pear tree that provides Otilla with treats. The skull too, though when Otilla feeds it a pear, the pear just drops through the skull. But he seems to like pears, all the same. Mostly, of course, what he likes is Otilla taking an interest in him, and being a good sharer.

Klassen, Jon. The Skull. Somerville, MA: Candlewick, 2023.

top