So my friend’s kids have no idea who the Headless Horseman or Rib Van Winkle are. They range from ages 3 to a young 13, and their parents regularly read to them. I’d love to rectify this oversight with a picturebook (or audiobook?), but it’s hard to get a sense of the illustrations online.
Does anyone have an illustrated edition to recommend? I’d prefer to hew as close to the original telling as possible instead of a watered down version.
by implacableforce
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As a children’s librarian, I will say that the language is very dense and 19th century and even an adult will struggle to gain meaning and follow certain events. I planned the program before I read it and ended of scrapping the reading and doing it as a storytelling event instead.
I then went to Sleepy Hollow to do research (years later I moved to the town next door to it for many years) I ended up cutting out elaborate black paper early American style silhouettes of key imagery of the story ( a skill I had prior) and used it as a backdrop to my storytelling.
Annually I did it for classes at my school until the artwork basically fell apart and I wasn’t up for recreating it. So honestly, I would look for very good adaptations in this case, Washington Irving’s is great, but even adults need work a little extra hard to decipher clear meaning.