The 13 Clocks (New York Review Books Children's Collection). Dieser Artikel ist nicht verfügbar.The 13 Clocks (New York Review Books Children's Collection)

"Once upon a time, in a gloomy castle on a lonely hill, where there were thirteen clocks that wouldn't go, there lived a cold, aggressive Duke, and his niece, the Princess Saralinda. She was warm in every wind and weather, but he was always cold. His hands were as cold as his smile, and almost as cold as his heart. He wore gloves when he was asleep, and he wore gloves when he was awake, which made it difficult for him to pick up pins or coins or the kernels of nuts, or to tear the wings from nightingales."

So begins James Thurber's sublimely revamped fairy tale, The 13 Clocks, in which a wicked Duke who imagines he has killed time, and the Duke's beautiful niece, for whom time seems to have run out, both meet their match, courtesy of an enterprising and very handsome prince in disguise. Readers young and old will take pleasure in this tale of love forestalled but ultimately fulfilled, admiring its upstanding hero ("He yearned to find in a far land the princess of his dreams, singing as he went, and possibly slaying a dragon here and there".) and unapologetic villain ("We all have flaws," the Duke said. "Mine is being wicked".), while wondering at the enigmatic Golux, the mysterious stranger whose unpredictable interventions speed the story to its necessarily happy end.

James Thurber (1894--1961) was one of the outstanding American humorists and cartoonists of the twentieth century, writing nearly forty books, including collections of essays, short stories, fables, and children's stories. He won a Tony Award for his popular Broadway play, A Thurber Carnival. The New York Review Children's Collection publishesThe Wonderful O by Thurber (illustrated by Marc Simont).

Neil Gaiman is an award-winning author of novels, short stories, children's books, and graphic novels. Among his works are the children's booksCoraline, The Wolves in the Walls, and The Day I Swapped My Dad for Two Goldfish; the Sandman graphic novels series; and the fantasy novelsStardust and Smoke and Mirrors.

Marc Simont (1915-2013) illustrated nearly one hundred books, working with authors such as Margaret Wise Brown, James Thurber, and Marjorie Weinman Sharmat. He is also the author of several books, and the translator of poems by García Lorca and others. Simont received the Caldecott Medal for his illustrations to A Tree Is Nice by Janice May Udry. He collaborated with Ruth Krauss onThe Backward Day (also published by The New York Review Children's Collection) andThe Happy Day, which is a Caldecott Honor Book. Simont illustrated James Thurber'sThe 13 Clocks and The Wonderful O, both available from The New York Review Children's Collection.