Don Quichot (Don Quixote)
Author: Rosa Navarro Durán
Illustrator: Francese Rovira
Original language: Spanish
Translated into Dutch by: Peter Jansen
Translated into English: not
Published: September 2011
Publisher: Tutti
EAN: 9789490139179
Price: € 13.99 (paperback)
Age: 9 years old and up
A beautiful knightly novel from the Spanish classical literature is Don Quixote of La Mancha, written by Miguel de Cervantes in 1605. The book was first translated into Dutch in 1657. And today we are reading Don Quixote to our little monsters, because the story has been adapted for children, by the Spanish author Rosa Navarro Duran.
We really like that! The funny, cartoonish illustrations are made by Spanish illustrator Francesc Rovira, who has illustrated a great many books. Even though we can't read the Spanish on his website, the drawings speak for themselves!
Halfway through the book it turns out that we like it more than the monsters do. Attention wanders and the fights with non-existent monsters - dragons which turn out to be windmills - are a step too far for them.
They really like exciting stories about knights and their fights, those are cool but an old man with a homemade helmet, not so much. Too bad but maybe we should put this book back on the shelf for later, when the children are older. Maybe then they might like this book just as much as we do.
3 clear radiant stars for Don Quixote, from the out-loud readers!