Beowulf the Warrior

Beowulf the Warrior, retold by Ian Serraillier, Illustrated By Mark Severin.

This skinny little book is more important than it might appear. It is the first version of Beowulf that I ever read. I think it must have been because of “The Tolkien Reader”; I had heard of Beowulf before, but “Reader” was the tipping point, with its Anglo-Saxon talkifying, that made me try it. And a better introduction to the poem for a young reader there could not be. It is told in unrhyming stressed poetic lines like the original; its illustrations mimic period art; and there is no extraneous “interpretations or opinions” added by the teller. This book, along with “The Hobbit”, Pyle’s “King Arthur” (with Arthurian satellites “Crystal Cave” and “Sword in the Stone”) and “The Dark is Rising”, was part of the catalyst that solidified my imaginative matrix in middle school. I have an early picture (early in my drawing as well as in time) where I try to mimic the coiling dragon from the illustrations; on the other side of the paper is a tracing of heraldry shields and terms from the World Book. I bought this copy (from the Lompoc Unified School District, no less) many years later over the internet.

Ranking: Essential.

File Code: Legend. Retelling. Hardback.