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Little Boy with a Big Horn (2008): 03/02/24

Little Boy with a Big Horn

Little Boy with a Big Horn by Jack Bechdolt and Dan Yaccarino (Illustrator) (2008) is one of Golden Books's recent(ish) re-issues with new illustrations. I thought it would be fun to compare it to the 1953 edition.

Dan Yaccarino's illustrations bring Ollie's story forward a few decades from the turn of the 20th century into something reminiscent of the 1950s or 1960s, with some nods to the early 21st century. The mother is now in striped capris and a button up shirt. In town the grocery clerk wears the paper hat and bowtie of a 1950s clerk. Among the townsfolk is a tall woman who bears a strong resemblance to Edith Head.

It's an interesting choice to modernize the story without fully modernizing it. Yaccarino's illustrations brings the book to the same distance in time between the 2008 reader and Ollie's world as the 1953 reader and Ollie's original world. The late 19th/early 20th century aesthetic of the original ties the book to the song which Ollie plays throughout.

Yaccarino's illustrations, while in keeping with the style of his other books, separates the Ollie from his music. Already, a book that references a song that at reissue was 111 years old was already asking the book to do more heavy lifting than perhaps it had to do in

1953. What's left is the repetition of Ollie being asked to move on and the satisfying resolution when he's able to save the ship.

That's not to say that Yaccarino's version is worse than Battaglia's. There are some noted improvements: greater diversity in the people, a wider range of costumes, and rocks that read better. Yaccarino's rocks are gray and his harbor is more understandably a harbor.

Five stars

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