The Skull

Starred review from May 8, 2023
This eerie reworking of a Tyrolean folktale by Caldecott Medalist Klassen opens as pale-skinned young Otilla, lost in a snowy forest after running away, stumbles upon a mansion inhabited by a talking skull. Somber, digitally finished graphite and ink artwork imbues the forest and the mansion with shadowy verticality. The skull greets Otilla from a window with an uncomfortable but dryly funny proposition: “I will come down and let you in, but only if you promise to carry me once I do. I am just a skull, and rolling around is difficult for me.” Otilla agrees, and the skull shows her the abandoned home’s rooms, its bottomless pit, and its tall tower. Confiding as they go, the skull eventually mentions the headless skeleton that pursues it each night. Otilla falls easily into a caretaking role as the two eat pears, dance, and bed down in relative safety. When the skeleton appears, Otilla moves with an imaginatively cold-blooded finality that reflects both characters’ desire not to be pursued. Echoes of other forbidding fairy tales pervade this high-stakes telling, in which Otilla’s primal bravery and sly wit result in an arc from flight to mutual reliance. An author’s note concludes. Ages 6–9. Agent: Steve Malk, Writers House.

Starred review from May 1, 2023
Caldecott medalist Klassen's signature style is brought to bear on a Tyrolean tale imbued with equal parts comfort and creepiness. As the story begins, we meet Otilla, a young tan-skinned girl on the run from her old life, who stumbles upon a large house with a single occupant: a talking skull. The two strike up an immediate friendship, and when the skull confesses that a headless skeleton chases him every night, Otilla is determined to come to his aid. Keen ingenuity on her part protects her new friend, and a happy ending sees the two of them together always. Klassen balances the spooky elements of the story brilliantly alongside cozy teas and the occasional waltz. This is aided in no small part by a limited palette that depicts the slanted burnt umber rays of the rising and setting sun as well as the gentle gleam of candlelight. In a marvelous author's note, Klassen recounts how he encountered this folktale in a school library and misremembered it in the best way. As he says, "Folktales...are supposed to be changed by who is telling them, and you never find them the same way twice." One can only hope that children will tell and retell this reinterpretation many times to themselves throughout the years. Employing his customary pitch-perfect tonal gymnastics, only Klassen could inspire readers to want craniums as pals. (Fiction. 6-9)

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