The Coming of the Iron Man

This specially abridged edition of The Iron Man takes us from his mysterious arrival, ‘How far had we walked? Nobody knows. Where had he come from? Nobody knows. How was he made? Nobody knows.’, through his dramatic tumble from the cliff and careful self-reassembly, his entrapment by the farmers and sudden re-emergence from the earth, concluding as he happily snacks on metal delicacies in the scrapyard with his new friend Hogarth. It is, of course, a joy to read aloud, the poetry, energy and precision of Ted Hughes’ words given space and room to breathe across the 48 pages and perfectly celebrated in Mini Grey’s new illustrations. Sometimes she frames passages of text within riveted panels, elsewhere using these strips of riveted metal to divide spreads vertically and horizontally, almost graphic novel style. Our point of view ranges as we sometimes have a bird’s eye view – maybe that of the seagulls watching as he gazes at the ocean –  see from his perspective, or gaze up from Hogarth’s, and her Iron Man is both immensely powerful, looming on the edge of the cliff, striding through the sea, and childlike, squatting down to better hear Hogarth’s plans for his future, lying on the ground as Hogarth reads to him. So full of life are the illustrations, that you can almost hear the clank of metal as he strides along, or the birdsong in the trees where Hogarth waits for him, the balance and synergy between robot and natural world perfectly maintained. A beautiful and thoughtful version of a children’s classic.

Read our new Q&A interview with Mini Grey.