Tinder

by Sally Gardner

Hardcover, 2014

Status

Available

Call number

823.92

Genres

Young Adult

Graphic Novels

All Topics

Graphic Novels and Comics

Fiction

Comics

Collection

Your library

Publication

Indigo (2014), 352 pages

Description

Otto Hundebiss is tired of war, but when he defies Death he walks a dangerous path. A half beast half man gives him shoes and dice which will lead him deep into a web of dark magic and mystery. He meets the beautiful Safire - pure of heart and spirit, the scheming Mistress Jabber and the terrifying Lady of the Nail. He learns the powers of the tinderbox and the wolves whose master he becomes. But will all the riches in the world bring him the thing he most desires? This novel is inspired by the Hans Christian Anderson fairy tale, The tinderbox.

User reviews

LibraryThing member passion4reading

The Thirty Years War, Germany, after the Battle of Breitenfeld. Wounded soldier Otto Hundebiss encounters Death gathering his fallen comrades, but manages to persuade him to let him live. Shortly after he is found and cared for by a strange half-man half-beast, who gives Otto three dice which will

guide his steps. But this is only the beginning of Otto's adventures, which see him fall in love with a spirited girl and encounter werewolves, ghosts, a witch or two and black magic.

From the beginning this felt like an old-fashioned fairy tale (in the best sense of the word), with several well-known devices particular to that genre (the magic number three, a curse and someone suffering under a spell) used to good effect, yet it also took a completely different direction to the one I had expected, with a surprising twist at the end of the tale. It manages to be thought-provoking in the right way (i.e. without raising an admonishing finger) and deals with fairly adult notions like war, slaughter and rape, with the descriptions being quite explicit and not leaving much to the imagination.

In the author's notes at the end of the book, Sally Gardner explains that her story is based on Hans Christian Andersen's fairy tale 'The Tinderbox', which I happen to have on my shelf, as yet unread. I feel this is a good opportunity to read it and learn how it inspired the author.

Rather unusually for a YA book, this has striking black-and-white illustrations (with a little red added in places for good measure) by David Roberts, that underpin the story and even enhance it in places. In my opinion, they raise the book from a good to a very good read.

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LibraryThing member bxbt

I loved the book. Very well written. I love the fact that it's illustrated. Too few books are illustrated. A proper "fairy tale" that reminds me of the original Grimm stories - and Andersen 'unDisneyfied', of course. The Grimms didn't call their collections "fairy tales"- they were "Haus Marchen"

tales told around the fireside to everyone. Not perhaps a book for younger readers. Recommended for young readers Year 7 + who are experimental in their choices.

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LibraryThing member imyril

A dark and harrowing fairy tale (based on an Andersen tale). Young Otto is on the losing side of a battle in the Thirty Years War. Escaping a brush with death, he meets a mysterious man-beast who tends his wounds and gifts him a set of dice that set him on a series of disturbing adventures.

Beautifully written and gorgeously illustrated, this is a curiosity for grown ups (or YA) who still enjoy fairy tales in the traditional style.

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LibraryThing member tim_halpin

Up for both the Carnegie Medal (for writing) and the Kate Greenaway Medal (for illustrations).

A retelling of an obscure Hans Christian Andersen story, set in the 30 years war (Germany in the 1600s), following the story of a young man forced to be a soldier, whose meeting with Death on the

battlefield puts in motion a mysterious journey and a quest. There are plenty of archetypal fairytale characters, definitely on the darker end of the spectrum. It's all very Jungian, and I'm sure I'll be haunted by parts of it. Not for younger readers!

However the illustrations will stay with me longer than the story, I think. David Roberts's black white and occasional glimpses of red are just the right combination of sharp, suggestive and nightmarishly surreal. And there are lots of them, too, which it always a bonus. I love how the images play with the text in some places. Without the illustrations I don't think I'd have finished the story, to be honest, as I'm a sucker for characters and plots, rather than imagery and symbolism.

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LibraryThing member hadleyreads

More than a retelling of Hans Andersen's haunting The Tinderbox, which I have loved since childhood, Tinder mixes fairytale and the grim realities of the Thirty Years War to make an unnerving and compelling new story with influences which seem to range from Goya to Robert Louis Stevenson. I

particularly loved the cast of folktale grotesques, beautifully completed by David Roberts' black and white (and red) drawings. The deft blend of dream-logic and conventional plotting pulled me along from one episode to the next while I was still pondering the hidden meanings and resonances of what I had just read. The historical setting means this is not just fairytale and fairytale ultimately cannot save the hero from his fate, try as it might. It also means that there are some serious themes here, including rape and other horrors of war. My 14-year-old son read it when he was working his way through the Carnegie shortlist this year and I then handed it to his 11-year-old sister. My son was horrified when he realised she had read it. Now I've read it myself, I think I would still have given her the book, but I wish I had known more about it so we could have discussed them with her (although parents tend to worry about these things too much -- the darker and more mature themes often go over children's heads). The only disappointing part of the story happens near the end: fairytales are allowed a lot of licence, but what happens on the gallows feels a bit like cheating.

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