Sometimes when you find/see a book and/or title, you think it is one thing. You base that assumption on the cover image and/or the author and/or illustrator’s name. Or you base it even on other books you have recently read. And when you finally do read that book (I was lucky enough to have one of my book dealers send me a finished copy), they turn out to be different than expected. Now, a title called Tea with an Old Giant that has a giant on the cover with tea items, makes one think there is little more than that going on. However, Jane Yolen made it expand into something more.
I thought it would be an interesting story about how a girl made friends with a giant that the town wouldn’t befriend and then they’d have tea. Then the village would learn the giant is nice and they’d have one big BFG happy moment. But it was more than that. We see how the giant starts off, then how they expand their world. We see how the troubles a single giant, who is all alone, can face. Things as simple as falling are dangerous. Afterall, who will/can pick him up? Then we see the giant going towards the town and those adventures. And these adventures become ones of a grandfather and a granddaughter. This book tells us how a friendship between two people can happen even if they are different because of (fill in the blank). Something I thought would be a book about acceptance and would be cute, turned into something that includes those things, plus have more depth to it as well.
Paolo Domeniconi takes that text and makes it even more. The colors are earthy and not overly bright, but not dull or faded either. They add the softer, folktale/folklore feeling to the overall picture. The size of the book is larger than a traditional picture book, and therefore those images stand out. The artwork and text makes things for the at least five and up, but could work for any age if you read the illustrations and not just text. Of course, due to the artistic nature of things, it would make a lovely gift for adults. Especially if they collect art books, Jewish folklore or like usual books.
