Dangerous Journey: The Story of Pilgrim's Progress
Grade 4 Up A beautifully produced, large-format version of Bunyan's classic. Although all aspects of the book are skillfully handled, the illustrations are the real key to its effectiveness. Intricately detailed and constructed in a fluid, energetic, well-balanced style, they sweep across the pages dramatically. Some are small, but most are full- or double-page spreads with the text in a large, elegant typeface arranged in a variety of patterns around them. The good people are handsome, suitably heroic and rather bland, but the villains are sharply and wittily portrayed. They brim with a sly, evil, vulgar vitality. The costume and setting of 17th-Century England are faithfully detailed. Gloomy dungeons, dark forests, black rivers and gray-clouded skies sustain the mood of danger and hardship. Rhythmic and stately, the prose is appropriate to the original without being obscure, and it reads aloud well. This religious allegory makes a rousing adventure story, an interesting historical commentary and an amusing satire on church and society. The multiple levels make it useful for a variety of ages, provided the picture book format is not a barrier. Although libraries may already have good versions of Pilgrim's Progress such as the one retold by Mary Godolphin and illustrated by Robert Lawson (Lippincott, 1939; o.p.) or Christian's Journey (Abingdon, 1980; o.p.) by Rhoda Couldridge, this one should be considered. Pat Pearl, First Presbyterian Church Library, Martinsville, Va.Copyright 1986 Reed Business Information, Inc.--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.