Jabberwocky

Jabberwocky (Original by Lewis Carroll)

Reimagined and Illustrated by Christopher Meyers

Christopher Meyers is able to give a colorful retell of Lewis Carroll’s poem.  The vibrant jacket on the book summons you to pick it up, and the vivid pictures throughout keep you entranced. ‘Twas Brillig, and the Sithy Toves did Gyre and Gimble in the Wabe…’ opens up with kids in the projects jumping rope.  The Jabberwock is portrayed as a large black man with orange eyes and a basketball.   ‘The Claws that Catch’ are his huge hands, with 7 fingers and illustrated in such a way that they nearly jump off the page of the book.  The presence of the new kids on the basketball court was signaled as ‘Beware of the Jub Jub Bird’.  The Jub Jub Bird challenged the Jabberwock to a game of street basketball, “One, Two! One, Two!”…hoops scored, game won, “Jabberwocky Slain by the Beamish Boy”!

I not only loved the Picasso-like Cubism style of art of this book, but I loved the idea of taking a poem known to us as children and spinning the words into a relatable story for today’s children.