Following up on their reappearance, I just got my first views of the three Ant and Bee books being republished by Egmont Books. I could understand that there would be new covers, and I won't really fault these stripey things:
No, the real problem comes with some sneak previews you can get by registering at http://www.lovereading4kids.co.uk/ and reading about the books. The first hint that something is amiss when you read: "This classic from the 1950's has been lovingly re-illustrated by the author Angela Banner to provide a fun, contempory story"(emphasis added) and "Original author and creator Angela Banner has re-illustrated the book". What, the elusive, now almost 90-year old Angela Banner has done new drawings?! And for More and More Ant and Bee, it says "Ant and Bee are back in this brand new story!" How is a book that first came out in 1961 a "brand new story?!
I have found a few reviews of these books, and noone seems to have noticed, even though, for example, Booka Uhu's Book Nook says "I remember them myself from when I was first starting to read waaaay back in Reception and Year 1," and The Book Zone (for Boys) writes "These delightful and much-loved characters are instantly recognisable to many parents and grandparents today." Well, maybe you remember, and maybe you might recongize, but boy (and girl) have they changed (for the worse!) [I will credit another site--Child-Led Chaos--for recognizing the change in language, but trying to explain it away: "(I suspect the original language would have been very dated but don’t have an original copy to compare...!)"
Check it out by downloading the extracts that you can find for each of the three books. There are different number of pages that you can see for each of the books, but I will take my example just from the third book (which, of course, was Book 6 in the last go-around of reprinting in 1989, but that is a different story). Without belaboring all the changes, let us look at the original discussion of "Bread":
and now let us see what the new book has. First, the new illustration:
I am not an art critic, but I have to say this is not the Angela Banner art that we grew to love. It is much more simplistic--less detail, solid straight lines, no grass, etc. In addition, we have lost the girl's hand, and we have picked up two birds--where do they come from? Well, the new text tells all:
The story has completely changed! The bread is for the birds? Well, these changes are for the birds!
The bread is still soft, but it is no longer buttery (although the picture certainly makes it seem so!). It is no longer buttery, I have to assume, because that is too long of a word nowadays. And what happened to the girl who helped clean up ant, well she is playing ball with Kind Dog--Kind Dog who has no presence in the original, but we all like Kind Dog, so he better show up.
I could rant on and on, but let this be it for now. Where is Angela Banner now?!?!? Friends of Ant and Bee unite and protest!
No, the real problem comes with some sneak previews you can get by registering at http://www.lovereading4kids.co.uk/ and reading about the books. The first hint that something is amiss when you read: "This classic from the 1950's has been lovingly re-illustrated by the author Angela Banner to provide a fun, contempory story"(emphasis added) and "Original author and creator Angela Banner has re-illustrated the book". What, the elusive, now almost 90-year old Angela Banner has done new drawings?! And for More and More Ant and Bee, it says "Ant and Bee are back in this brand new story!" How is a book that first came out in 1961 a "brand new story?!
I have found a few reviews of these books, and noone seems to have noticed, even though, for example, Booka Uhu's Book Nook says "I remember them myself from when I was first starting to read waaaay back in Reception and Year 1," and The Book Zone (for Boys) writes "These delightful and much-loved characters are instantly recognisable to many parents and grandparents today." Well, maybe you remember, and maybe you might recongize, but boy (and girl) have they changed (for the worse!) [I will credit another site--Child-Led Chaos--for recognizing the change in language, but trying to explain it away: "(I suspect the original language would have been very dated but don’t have an original copy to compare...!)"
Check it out by downloading the extracts that you can find for each of the three books. There are different number of pages that you can see for each of the books, but I will take my example just from the third book (which, of course, was Book 6 in the last go-around of reprinting in 1989, but that is a different story). Without belaboring all the changes, let us look at the original discussion of "Bread":
and now let us see what the new book has. First, the new illustration:
I am not an art critic, but I have to say this is not the Angela Banner art that we grew to love. It is much more simplistic--less detail, solid straight lines, no grass, etc. In addition, we have lost the girl's hand, and we have picked up two birds--where do they come from? Well, the new text tells all:
The bread is still soft, but it is no longer buttery (although the picture certainly makes it seem so!). It is no longer buttery, I have to assume, because that is too long of a word nowadays. And what happened to the girl who helped clean up ant, well she is playing ball with Kind Dog--Kind Dog who has no presence in the original, but we all like Kind Dog, so he better show up.
I could rant on and on, but let this be it for now. Where is Angela Banner now?!?!? Friends of Ant and Bee unite and protest!
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Is nothing sacred?
ReplyDeleteRalph, thanks so much for your sleuthing. I am posting some of the original art here on this blog as well as this facebook page. Hope you enjoy:
ReplyDeletehttps://www.facebook.com/AntAndBeeBooks/