Overview of Book Choices

These were the final books I'd chosen to read:

• Animal Farm, George Orwell
• Wuthering Heights, Emily Brontë
• Hansel and Gretel, The Brothers Grimm
• The Witches, Roald Dahl

Synopsis of Animal Farm

'Old Major', an old boar living on the farm, brings the farm animals together for a meeting, discussing the parasitic qualities of the human and teaching them a song called 'Beasts of England'. Shortly after Major dies, two younger pigs take charge of the animals and lead them to revolt against the drunk farmer Mr. Jones, renaming the farm 'Animal Farm'. They create the 'Seven Animal Commandments', of which the most important is 'All animals are equal'. Eventually the pigs raise themselves to positions of leadership and start setting aside special items and luxuries for themselves.

Towards the end, the commandments are abridged to just 'All animals are equal, but some animals are more equal than others' and the animals realise they can no longer distinguish between the pigs and humans as they start to walk upright, wear clothes and carry whips.

I thought the book was very well written, and although it's a shorter story than most it encorporates a lot of very powerful allegories which is something I really like about it. However I'm not sure I will choose to illustrate this book because although I enjoy drawing animals and people, I feel like I won't be able to really push the boundaries of my style with this book and it might become a little bit boring if working on it for a long period of time.

Synopsis of Wuthering Heights

The story begins with a man named Mr. Lockwook acquiring residency at Thrushcross Grange, owned by Heathcliffe. After being stranded at his landlords home (Wuthering Heights) and then reading about a woman named Catherine with multiple surnames, after which he has a nightmare featuring this woman. Upon returning to Thrushcross Grange, he enquries about the mysterious Heathcliffe and his history to the housekeeper there, Ellen.

Ellen then narrates the story of Wuthering Heights, from the arrival of Heathcliffe as a child to Catherine's marriage to Edgar Linton and her subsequent death. Then she continues the story until the present day.

The main theme of the book, I would say is of extreme jealousy and revenge, however the book was narrated in a very boring way with little in the way of descriptions or, in my view, highly important events that really had an impact on me as a reader. I doubt I will choose to illustrate this and found it quite disappointing because it's such a well-known classic and it just didn't live up to my expectations.

Synopsis of Hansel and Gretel

Hansel and Gretel is the story of the two children of a woodcutter and his wife (their stepmother). The family was starving and the stepmother cruelly persuaded her husband to leave the children in the woods to fend for themselves, where it was likely they would starve to death or be eaten by the wild animals within the wood. The first time they were left, Hansel had cleverly dropped white pebbles on the way into the woods so they were able to find their way home again.

The second time, however, Hansel had dropped breadcrumbs which were eaten by birds. Unable to find their way home, the children wandered through the forest and eventually found a wonderful house built from sweets and gingerbread. A little old woman greeted them and fed them a nice meal that night, however in reality she was a wicked witch who plotted to fatten and eat the children. After locking Hansel in a cage and fattening him up, she would have eaten him if Gretel had not pushed her in the oven which she was baking bread.

Free from the witches clutches, the children chanced upon a trove of gold and jewels in the witches house, and they found their way home where their father was overjoyed to have his children return to him, and his wife had died while they were away.

This was always one of my favourite stories as a child. I really enjoyed reading this, and although there are many variations and re-writes of the story at various times I am confident after many cross-referencing that the version I have found is the original (published 1812). This could be a good choice for me, as I'm familiar with the story and children's book illustration is a possible career pathway in my future so it would be good to experiment with this sooner rather than later.

Synopsis of The Witches

 In the introduction of the book, the narrator reveals the world of witches to be a secret society plotting to rid the world of children.

The boy in the story becomes orphaned when his parents die in a car crash, and so he moves to live with his grandmother who tells him many stories to help him get over the grief. His favourite stories told by her are the stories of the witches, and she tells him of 5 children she knew that had been affected by the witches. She tells him all the ways to spot a witch, and warns him to be careful of them.

The grandmother falls ill and so they cannot travel to Norway for the summer as planned and instead go to a beachside resort in southern England. The boy, playing with his pet mice in the hotel ballroom, gets locked inside the room while a meeting of women takes place. This turns out to be the annual witches meeting of England, and he overhears the Grand Witch's plan to eradicate every child in England using a new concoction, the Formula 86 Delayed Action Mouse-Maker, which will turn people into mice after a set amount of time! The forumla is proved by its experimentation on a boy staying in the hotel named Bruno, a greedy boy which the Grand Witch lured in with the promise of chocolate bars.

The boy gets found by the witches in the room and they turn him into a mouse too, however he manages to escape and tells his grandmother all about their wicked plan. And so they form their own plan in which they will turn all the witches into mice themselves and thus will get rid of all the witches in England!

This was always one of my favourite Roald Dahl books, alongside James and the Giant Peach. I would really love to do this book although it will be a challenging pick because Quentin's illustrations are so iconic and prominent in the books of Roald Dahl. This is the main factor dissuading me from choosing this book but because it's one of my favourite books I would really like to illustrate it and I think it would keep me entertained for the full brief with this. There's a lot I could do with this in terms of experimentation, as the main issue for me will trying to avoid being over-influenced by Blake's illustrations.