The 1985 Caldecott winner is a retelling of a story from Edmund Spencer’s Faerie Queen, Saint George and the Dragon, by Margaret Hodges and illustrated by Trina Schart Hyman. I’m not familiar with the original story, but this retelling is full of adventure as the brave knight faces the dragon day after day until it is killed.
Hodges tells the story with somewhat of an archaic feel, and yet it seems appropriate. The illustrations are likewise rather traditional; the illustrator even calls her style “old-fashioned.” They are detailed and impressive. Overall, the illustrations matched the text and I only wish there were more illustrations and therefore less text on each page; some pages were quite dense with text.
