Book Review: Brave Irene
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What Parents Should Know
An adventure story of high heroics and simple charms,
written in Steig's fluent hand and set to his impressionistic,
emotive watercolors. The pacing keeps listeners rapt.
Common Sense Media Review
A most excellent heroine--one of only a few in the Steig
canon--who gives as good as she gets from the cruel wind and
drifting snow and the deep dark woods. "I'll do no such thing,"
snaps Irene, when the squall tries to bully her home.
She must contend with the workings of fate ("How could anything so terribly wrong be allowed to happen?"). However, she has gotten herself into the mess, all to deliver an empty box and a "Sorry," and that's the beauty of the tale. When Irene slaps herself to urge herself to get on with her survival, she's just doing what a girl has to do under the circumstances. "Yeah!" kids cry when she pulls herself to her feet from under a head-high drift.
The text, as is typical of Steig's work, is as artful as the illustrations: "By the middle of the pasture, the flakes were falling thicker. Now the wind drove Irene along so rudely she had to hop, skip, and go helter-skeltering over the knobby ground."
Other great tales by Steig include The Real Thief and Dominic. Try also James Marshall's Rats on the Range.
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