Children's Picture BooksGulliver's Travels remains a key text in arguments as to what constitutes writing for children. Whatever Swift's own views may have been, the fact remains that within a few years of its first publication (1726), retellings and abridgements with a young audience specifically in mind had begun to appear.BrundibarRetold by Tony Kushner, illustrated by Maurice SendakWalker, 56pp, £12.99The Gruffalo's ChildBy Julia Donaldson, illustrated by Axel SchefflerMacmillan , 32pp, £10.99
They have continued to do so, though generally today such treatments focus on the first two of Gulliver's voyages, to Lilliput and Brobdingnag: their timeless appeal lies in Lemuel's succession of extraordinary encounters and in the graphic detail that makes the extraordinary credible. These are also the qualities which have made Swift's classic a popular subject for illustration, a dimension of many of the modern versions that has enhanced their appeal.
This beautifully produced new edition by Jenkins and Riddell ambitiously includes all four voyages of the original. It is aimed primarily at readers aged nine and upwards and, obviously, the desire to make the material thus accessible means that some losses are inevitable. The need for linguistic accessibility involves a considerable amount of simplification, both in vocabulary and sentence structure. The need for thematic appropriateness necessitates quite severe bowdlerisation, most noticeably in the Brobdingnagian pages: there is no mention, for example, of the "monstrous breast" of the farmer's wife or of the reception Gulliver is accorded by the Maids of Honour.
Jenkins's text, even allowing for these excisions, manages to convey something of Swift's savagery and candour. But to see these qualities in their full glory we go to Riddell's magnificent illustrations, where pen and brush are wielded with a potent mixture of venom and satirical humour, reminiscent of his regular cartoons in the Observer. The farmer's wife - slightly toned down, perhaps - is here, as is (in a very Swiftian touch) a certain Tony Blair; he is having his ears pulled, in the Laputian sequence, for serving in governments which "seem to forget very quickly things they have promised."
The text and illustration for the Kushner and Sendak version of Brundibar originate in a Czech opera, completed in 1938 and subsequently performed on almost 60 occasions by the children in the Nazi concentration camp of Terezin.
The narrative, relayed throughout in capital letters, is the story of two children called Aninko and Pepicek. Their mother is ill and they go to find milk for her, only to have their intentions blocked by a bullying hurdy-gurdy grinder called Brundibar. But three talking animals and 300 children come to their aid, the children are empowered to sing and "coin after coin is flung into the marvellous wonderful children's soon-to-be milkbucket". And as for Brundibar? Will he be "thumped and dumped and squashed and vanquished? Well, just ask anyone, they'll tell you."
The bully, then, would seem to be overcome, a celebratory aspect of the story which will appeal to younger readers. In both words and pictures, however, there are numerous suggestions of darkness and despair to offset this, certainly for the adult who notes the verbal and iconographic allusions to yellow stars and ovens, to conflagrations and crematoria and who sees, on the final page, the message scrawled across the handbill for a concentration camp performance: "Nothing ever works out neatly - Bullies don't give up completely". An earlier double-page spread depicting mothers weeping as their children fly away on blackbirds has particular resonance in a world where Beslan is now part of all our vocabularies.
Widely accepted as a contemporary classic, Donaldson and Scheffler's The Gruffalo, first published in 1999, has now a sequel, The Gruffalo's Child. Here, in spite of parental warnings, Gruffalo Junior embarks one snowy night on her search for Big Bad Mouse. Various creatures are encountered en route but it is only with the appearance of someone "not big, not bad, but a mouse at least" that young Gruffalo's search is rewarded - and, without a shadow of a doubt, very scarily too. Scheffler's snowscapes, their inhabitants and Donaldson's rhyming couplets entertainingly combine in a picture book which should be set aside immediately for this year's Christmas stockings.
Robert Dunbar is Head of English at the Church of Ireland College of Education, Dublin
Jonathan Swift's Gulliver Retold by Martin Jenkins, illustrated by Chris Riddell Walker, 144pp, £14.99