Le Roi Barbe d’Ours, petit théâtre de papier.

Abstract

How and why illustrate fairy tales? As we will see in this article, Maurice Sendak offers several answers to this question.In Juniper Tree and Other Tales from Grimm, he chose to limit himself to one illustration per story. This illustration, capturing a paroxysmal moment in the narrative, is intended to reveal a small fraction of the mystery embedded in each tale, which were chosen for being stories full of magic, wishes and strong emotions.On the other hand, in the less spectacular King Grisly-Beard, the images help readers to project themselves into the work as they would in a role-playing game. Sendak thus illustrates the tale as a play with children in the lead roles, letting the story merge with their everyday lives.

Keywords

• children’s literature
• Sendak (Maurice)
• Grimm (Jacob and Wilhelm)
• illustration
• story
• theater