Page 97 - Gullivers

Jonathan Swist’s Gulliver retold by Martin Jenkins and illustrated by Chris Riddell is possibly the most ambitious retelling for children of Swist’s classic.
The extraordinary quality especially of its illustration has been widely recognised. It was awarded the Kate Greenaway Medal 2004 in Britain and the Parents’ Choice Award, Gold 2005, Picture Books in the United States. Both Jenkins
and Riddell would seem perfectly placed in terms of their experience, temperament and artistic skills to undertake this work. Martin Jenkins’ own travels and work as a conservation biologist, and his track record as a writer of high-quality information books committed to raising awareness of environmental and conservation issues for children mean that he is uniquely qualified to
re-tell Gulliver’s story for children in the twenty-first century. Chris Riddell
is a highly regarded creator of books for children, and an illustrator of other writers’ work, best known perhaps for his collaboration with Paul Stewart in illustrating the Edge Chronicles series. He is also a very highly regarded award- winning political cartoonist for publications such as The Observer, The New Statesman, The Independent. In the early 1990s his cartoons were informed
by a satirical anger reminiscent of Swist’s and, like Swist’s, directed at political corruption, because he felt that British society ‘ had a millenarian feeling
of decay, a suppurating, pustular mood’ .
Riddell illustrates the eleven by nine and a half inch sized book, richly and exuberantly with seventy water-colour plates, and many black-and-white line drawings mostly in comic cartoon style. The colour is very bright, attractive and stimulating and varies dramatically from one of the adventures to the next. The work contains two full double spreads, the first a map of Gulliver’s travels at the very beginning, and the second a picture of Gulliver outstretched and pinned down by the Lilliputians when he first arrives in Lilliput. There are many single- page spreads and one and a half-page spreads that cross the gutter, along with quarter-page illustrations and small black and white insets within paragraphs. Certain motifs are cleverly repeated throughout. Taking his cue from the fact
V. Jonathan Swist’s Gulliver, 2004 91