Ian Serraillier (1912-1994) was a renowned English author and poet especially known for his children's books. His wartime adventure story The Silver Sword (1956) is a beloved classic, and has been adapted twice for television. In 1948, he founded the New Windmill Series for Heinemann Educational Books with his wife, Anne, which he would co-edit for decades.

"His flamboyant art nouveau swirls, the sweeping curls and marble-like sea-foamy flames are gracefully spectacular, and his green, gulping witch quite lives up to Serraillier's description of Grimblegrum as "all willow-gnarled and whiskered head to toe." Most important, his sensuous ostentation is totally in keeping with the dramatic transformations of the Grimm-based story and the compressed, onomotopoetic extravagance of Serraillier's musical verse. The scene can change from the witch's gross candyland villa with its "licorice-beaded door" and "glassy glacier-minted floor" to the pale, almost imperceptible loveliness of two swans (really a boy and girl who have changed themselves to avoid the witch's clutches) gliding "serene and cool" on a "heaven-painted pond" to a tangled, shadowed, thorny thicket in which Grimblegrum dances to a magic flute shrieking "tickle-me-thistle and prickle-de-dee" while the children escape. For those who are fed up with benign cookie-baking witches, Grimblegrum "astride her broom o' beech" or "galloping, gulping 'Gobble you yet, I'll gobble you yet!' " should prove a high-powered Halloween read-aloud." - Kirkus Review, 1973

Publisher: Anthology Editions

Pub date: 2023-09-19

Length: 32 pages