Rip Van Winkle

Classic Treasury 1 The Brothers Grimm Fairy Tales

by John Patience (illustrator)

Wandering through the mountains to escape from his nagging wife, Rip van Winkle encounters a stranger and a group of small oddly dressed people playing a strange game with bowls

Hardcover

First published June 27, 1985

About the author

John Patience was born in Lancashire, England, in 1949 and trained in typography and book design at the Harris College in Preston, Lancashire. After college, he worked briefly as a designer for a couple of publishers in London, England but he really wanted to have his own children's books published. He did various jobs to earn a living, whilst writing and developing his skills as an illustrator.

John's first self-authored illustrated children's book was published in 1980 - 'The Seasons in Fern Hollow'. Over the next few years this grew into four further series called 'Tales from Fern Hollow', eventually totalling 17 titles.

Since then John has had more than 100 titles published in many countries around the world and translated into many languages. He has written, designed and illustrated both "flat" books and pop-up books.

He lives with his wife in rural France and as well as his writing and illustrating he enjoys producing digital sculptures.

Reviews

[Jaimie]

Not all of John Patience’s adapted classic fairytales are a success (in my opinion), but the story of Rip Van Winkle is a perfect example of his style bending well with the source material to create a wonderful tale. Washington Irving’s setting of the Catskill Mountains is brought to life by Patience’s classic take on roughly magical woodlands settings, time period perfect costume details, and cast of slightly wizened mountain dwarves. Topped off with a charmingly wrought Rip Van Winkle who begins the story as a handsome (if lazy) young man and becomes a bearded oldster, this is easily one of my favourite visual adaptations of the story!

[Rodopa]

Nice accessible retelling of the story. 6 yr old enjoyed it.