Hiawatha

This is the paperback edition of an abridgement first published in Britain in 1985. The cover, featuring a somewhat cloyingly comely Hiawatha, is misleading, giving no indication that only about 100 of the nearly 6,000 lines of Longfellow's classic poem are available here. A recent reading of this sample to a group of fourth-years convinced me that the chanting rhythms and mythical imagery of this masterpiece retain their appeal. Ms Jeffers' illustrations present a fusion of sentimentality and visionary magic, and may help attract new readers to an exploration of the full-scale epic.