The King Who Tried to
Fry an Egg on His Head
The riches from these marriages do indeed put food on the table, but also precipitate some foolish antics by the king, much to the exasperation of his wife. Like many folktales, the story strikes a balance between the practical and the fanciful which Will has captured in alternating warm and cool tones and the counterpoised postures of the royal family. For this story, Will lightened his touch and displayed a pervasive sense of whimsy, appropriate to the comical character of the simple-hearted main character. The king and his daughters are drawn lightly to convey their slightly fey personalities, while the queen is weighty both in line and character. The mythical sun and moon from the South American myths reappear as benevolent husbands for two of the king's daughters. The costuming and architecture reflect the Russian roots of the tale; the royal opulence of the setting is nicely offset by the sweet simplicity of the rather bedraggled king. Will also used small vignettes in the white spaces to extend the story, much as he used the silhouettes to move the story along in Traveling to Tondo.
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The King Who Tried to Fry an Egg on His Head is a Russian folktale adapted by Mirra Ginsburg. To bring prosperity to his household, a good-hearted but weak-minded king marries off his three daughters to the sun, moon, and raven.
 Starting From Sketch Inside the Picture Book of Will Hillenbrand
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Reviews
From Booklist , February 15, 1994.: Ages 5-8. The first sentence of this story ("A long, long time ago, and far away, there lived a King") is fairy-tale boilerplate. The second ("This King was very poor, and he was not very clever") is not. The king makes marriages for his three beautiful daughters with the Sun, the Moon, and the Raven. When he goes to visit his children, he finds that all of them are living better than he is. From each son-in-law, the king learns a marvelous trick, but when he tries to practice the tricks for his wife, they don't work. The Sun can fry an egg on his head, but the king can't. The engaging simpleton of a monarch is more closely related to James Marshall's Stupids than to Prince Charming, and Hillenbrand's oil and oil pastel paintings, strong on golden reds, oranges, and golds, emphasize the gap. The king has patches on his sleeves, holes in his stockings, and the countenance of a cherubic Humpty-Dumpty Lenin. The humor is not directed at the king in a mean-spirited way. The monarch learns his limitations in the end, and readers--like the queen--will be happy. Mary Harris Veeder Copyright© 1994, American Library Association. All rights reserved From Horn Book: A poor and foolish king offers to give his three daughters in marriage to the sun, the moon, and the raven, respectively, if they will keep him warm, give him light, and help him pick up the grain he had dropped out of a mouse-eaten sack. Ginsburg is at the top of her form in this retelling of an old Russian tale, illustrated with Hillenbrand's chunky caricatures, which are sure to evoke chuckles. -- Copyright © 1994 The Horn Book, Inc. All rights reserved.
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