Shrunken Treasures: Literary Classics, Short, Sweet, and Silly

Nine weighty literary classics are transformed into delectable morsels with Scott Nash’s playful versification and whimsical illustration.

Can’t stomach all of Frankenstein? Lacking the strength to read The Odyssey? Don’t have 1,001 nights to get through Scheherazade’s ordeal? Never fear, Shrunken Treasures are here! Nine of the world’s best-known stories and books have been reduced, like slowly simmered cherries, to tart and tasty mouthfuls. Lighthearted verse turns Moby-Dick into a simple nursery song. Outrageous color makes even gloomy Hamlet seem like fun. Riotous images transform Jane Eyre’s ordeal into a whirlwind adventure. The Metamorphosis, Remembrance of Things Past, Don Quixote, and others have all been delivered from dense duty to delightful ditty in Scott Nash’s collection of hallowed classics, featuring notes about the original texts at the end.

“Young readers are introduced to nine classic stories the author claims to have put in a "versizer" and shrunk to lively verse and humorous illustrations...A lighthearted and clever rendering of some classics young readers may be inclined to read later on. --School Library Journal (starred review) The rhymes are ripping, the poems poignant, the puns are ever so much fun and the illustrations illuminating. Scott Nash's talent is exploding on these pages and I am forever a solid fan. --Jesica Sweedler DeHart, bookseller at BookPeople of Moscow In a quest to cast nine renowned literary works into short poems, Nash ( Uh-oh, Baby! ) does best with his one-line summation of Proust's Remembrance of Things Past : "I dipped a sweet cake in my tea/ And a whole world came back to me." His crisp, digitally produced artwork renders these literary heroes as round-headed, doll-like figures, their cheerful expressions belying the awful things that happen to them in their respective stories. --Publishers Weekly Adult readers will admire the deft way Nash has sidestepped violence in some works and given others pleasant, happily-ever-after endings in spite of themselves..."The Odyssey," "Moby-Dick," and "Remembrance of Things Past" are particularly witty. Cartoonish digital art brings the characters to life and keeps the tone playful and perky. --Booklist Online Genius! Far from your typical CliffsNotes, these nine kid-friendly interpretations of the classics feature fun illustrations and lots of jokes. --FamilyFun”

Young readers are introduced to nine classic stories the author claims to have put in a “versizer” and shrunk to lively verse and humorous illustrations...A lighthearted and clever rendering of some classics young readers may be inclined to read later on.
—School Library Journal (starred review)

The rhymes are ripping, the poems poignant, the puns are ever so much fun and the illustrations illuminating. Scott Nash’s talent is exploding on these pages and I am forever a solid fan.
—Jesica Sweedler DeHart, bookseller at BookPeople of Moscow

In a quest to cast nine renowned literary works into short poems, Nash (Uh-oh, Baby!) does best with his one-line summation of Proust’s Remembrance of Things Past: “I dipped a sweet cake in my tea/ And a whole world came back to me.” His crisp, digitally produced artwork renders these literary heroes as round-headed, doll-like figures, their cheerful expressions belying the awful things that happen to them in their respective stories.
—Publishers Weekly

Adult readers will admire the deft way Nash has sidestepped violence in some works and given others pleasant, happily-ever-after endings in spite of themselves...“The Odyssey,” “Moby-Dick,” and “Remembrance of Things Past” are particularly witty. Cartoonish digital art brings the characters to life and keeps the tone playful and perky.
—Booklist Online

Genius! Far from your typical CliffsNotes, these nine kid-friendly interpretations of the classics feature fun illustrations and lots of jokes.
—FamilyFun

Scott Nash is the creator of the illuminated middle-grade novel The High-Skies Adventures of Blue Jay the Pirate and the early reader Tuff Fluff: The Case of Duckie's Missing Brain. He is also the illustrator of Saturday Night at the Dinosaur Stomp by Carol Diggory Shields and many other children’s books. He lives on Peaks Island off the coast of Portland, Maine.

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