Don Quijote de la Mancha.
Reviewed by Anat Shenker, Univ. of California, Berkeley -- Críticas, 2/1/2008
De Cervantes Saavedra, Miguel. Felipe Garrido, adapt.
illus. by Antonio Alberran Rivera. photogs. by Antonio Perera Sarmiento. Mexico/U.S.: Oceano. 2007. 139p. ISBN 978-970-651-941-2. pap. $13.99.
Gr 2-5–This cartoon edition of a beloved classic deserves credit for staying close to the original plot lines. Unfortunately, the spirit of the tale is lost, including the whimsy and hope of Cervantes’s book. The comic-book style, with three to four frames per page and each with their own text balloons, seems promising; however, it fails in the execution. Characters and props are drawn over photographs of real landscapes, similar to Who Framed Roger Rabbit but with less attention to detail. This blend is visually distracting: readers are neither swept up in the pure fantasy of make believe people in an invented world, nor are they able to imagine a person so pure of imagination that he actually lives his stories in the “real” world. Now in its third edition, this title is a noble idea—adapting a complex and important literary work for children—but is ultimately unsatisfying.
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