Fairuza Balk expertly differentiates the characters in this retelling of a mysterious Tyrolean folktale. From the beginning, Balk captures Otilla's youth and curiosity. Her courage becomes clear when she meets the other character in this story, a skull. Balk's noble tone and accent fit him, and the way she expresses his approachability transforms a typically scary icon into a friend. All is affirmed by Balk's rendering of Otilla and the skull's warm dialogue. When a skeleton hunts the skull, Balk makes its menace evident. But calm and clever Otilla is full of aplomb. The use of music and sound effects--heavy, regal strains, along with a whistling wind and a crackling fire--befit the setting and story. The author's afterword discusses how he transformed the original tale. S.W. Winner of AudioFile Earphones Award © AudioFile 2023, Portland, Maine

★ 05/08/2023

This eerie reworking of a Tyrolean folktale by Caldecott Medalist Klassen opens as pale-skinned young Otilla, lost in a snowy forest after running away, stumbles upon a mansion inhabited by a talking skull. Somber, digitally finished graphite and ink artwork imbues the forest and the mansion with shadowy verticality. The skull greets Otilla from a window with an uncomfortable but dryly funny proposition: “I will come down and let you in, but only if you promise to carry me once I do. I am just a skull, and rolling around is difficult for me.” Otilla agrees, and the skull shows her the abandoned home’s rooms, its bottomless pit, and its tall tower. Confiding as they go, the skull eventually mentions the headless skeleton that pursues it each night. Otilla falls easily into a caretaking role as the two eat pears, dance, and bed down in relative safety. When the skeleton appears, Otilla moves with an imaginatively cold-blooded finality that reflects both characters’ desire not to be pursued. Echoes of other forbidding fairy tales pervade this high-stakes telling, in which Otilla’s primal bravery and sly wit result in an arc from flight to mutual reliance. An author’s note concludes. Ages 6–9. Agent: Steve Malk, Writers House. (July)

Folk tales are meant to be flexible things, open-source stories infinitely moldable to the needs of teller and era. That’s the wonder of them — and of “The Skull,” an old Tyrolean yarn distilled to its droll essentials and marvelously reimagined by the Caldecott medalist (and national treasure) Jon Klassen. . . The pared-back, ocher-tinted illustrations are well suited to the folk-tale form, and pair perfectly with Klassen’s deceptively simple storytelling.
—The New York Times Book Review

Caldecott medalist Klassen’s signature style is brought to bear on a Tyrolean tale imbued with equal parts comfort and creepiness. . . . One can only hope that children will tell and retell this reinterpretation many times to themselves throughout the years. Employing his customary pitch-perfect tonal gymnastics, only Klassen could inspire readers to want craniums as pals.
—Kirkus Reviews (starred review)

Echoes of other forbidding fairy tales pervade this high-stakes telling, in which Otilla’s primal bravery and sly wit result in an arc from flight to mutual reliance.
—Publishers Weekly (starred review)

Klassen’s recognizable graphite-and-ink illustrations capture the haunting—yet somehow charming—atmosphere of the stark Austrian setting, where shadows loom, bones come to life, and apricot sunshine cuts through the gloom. . . . Is the story creepy? You bet, but it’s also weirdly sweet and characterized by agency, kindness, and choice. . . . Klassen's newest offering will be highly coveted.
—Booklist (starred review)

Klassen has proved especially good at introducing new, often solo, young readers to the unsettling but intriguing place where fear becomes an essential narrative element, offering enough humor and absurdity to provide comfort on the journey. Such is the case with The Skull, a reimagining of a Tyrolean folktale that shows a young girl’s resolve against unnamed, unexplained threats. . . . the book offers a lesson on the usefulness of fear and likely a reminder of what kids already suspect: the world can be awful and scary, but empathy and friendship can arise from its darkest places.
—The Bulletin of the Center for Children's Books (starred review)

Unflappable Otilla and the unfailingly polite skull make for odd but exemplary companions in this well-paced tale. . . . illustrated in classic, deadpan Klassen style with speckled art that’s both mesmerizing and dryly hilarious. The dark tones of the art are warmed by slants of peach-hued winter sunlight; like the scary-funny story, darkness and light work in tandem ­surprisingly well.
—The Horn Book (starred review)

Author/illustrator Jon Klassen takes an especially dark turn in an unconventional folk tale for hardy early readers, The Skull, a morbid yet profoundly affectionate chapter book about a girl and her bony companion. . . .The gripping art melds brilliantly with emotionally hefty text to strike an overwhelmingly eerie and foreboding tone, which plays in exquisite contrast to the blooming solidarity between Otilla and the skull. . . . Make no bones about it, this is a wholly distinctive and delightfully unsettling creation.
—Shelf Awareness (starred review)

Readers can enjoy a quick read, the implementation of interesting literary elements, and the humor that we have come to know from Klassen.
—School Library Connection

[A] droll and delicious tale. . . Any disquiet that children ages 6-10 might harbor about a talking skull will dissipate in the light of the skull’s friendly attitude and gracious manners.
—The Wall Street Journal

Gifted author-illustrator Jon Klassen offers a wonderfully eerie version of an old folktale, illustrated with his distinctive somber graphite and ink artwork in black and white and muted tones of sepia, rose and blue and printed in large type with short chapters that should appeal to beginning readers.
—The Buffalo News

Jon Klassen brings his droll humor and just the right amount of spine-tingling creepiness to this retelling of a Tyrolean folktale. . . . Klassen uses his spare text to great effect and the mostly monochromatic illustrations provide just the right eerie echo. This is a book sure to be read over and over and over again. Even the most reluctant reader will be eager to keep these pages turning.
—The New York Journal of Books

This delightfully dark picture book retells a Tyrolean folk tale of the same name. . . . This is a longer-than-average picture book — much like Klassen’s previous picture book The Rock from the Sky — with Klassen’s trademark dark humor. . . . Fairy tale and horror readers of all ages will love it.
—Book Riot

★ 09/29/2023

Gr 2–4—Reducing an old tale to, appropriately enough, bare bones, Klassen puts a distinctive spin on the "unlikely friends" trope. Fleeing an unspecified danger as creepy, disembodied voices call her name, young Otilla comes upon a large house in the middle of the forest where she meets and bonds with a lonely skull. Soon they are dancing together in a silent, empty ballroom, and she is tenderly pouring tea into the skull's mouth—"'Ah, nice and warm,' said the skull. 'Thank you.'" Learning that the skull is being relentlessly hunted by a headless skeleton, Otilla stages an ambush that night and methodically smashes the bony bully to bits. The next morning when the skull, still (in a departure from the original story) a skull, thanks her and invites her to stay, she responds with typical restraint: "All right." Like the laconic, stretched-out narrative, the stripped-down art echoes with notes both gothic and comical; the tea bit has a slapstick feel, particularly as the skull is drawn with solid bone in place of jaws or teeth, and for all the intimate mutual regard that readers sensitive to emotional nuances will see developing between the lines, Otilla, who is likewise deadpan throughout, has staring eyes that will give even hardened fans of Edward Gorey shivers. In a perceptive source note, the author justifies the changes he has made with the insight that our brains automatically make every story we read or hear our own. VERDICT Twists aplenty for younger audiences in an eerie, atmospheric, and, unsurprisingly provocative outing.—John Edward Peters

Fairuza Balk expertly differentiates the characters in this retelling of a mysterious Tyrolean folktale. From the beginning, Balk captures Otilla's youth and curiosity. Her courage becomes clear when she meets the other character in this story, a skull. Balk's noble tone and accent fit him, and the way she expresses his approachability transforms a typically scary icon into a friend. All is affirmed by Balk's rendering of Otilla and the skull's warm dialogue. When a skeleton hunts the skull, Balk makes its menace evident. But calm and clever Otilla is full of aplomb. The use of music and sound effects--heavy, regal strains, along with a whistling wind and a crackling fire--befit the setting and story. The author's afterword discusses how he transformed the original tale. S.W. Winner of AudioFile Earphones Award © AudioFile 2023, Portland, Maine