She continues to be happy, and the archduke continues to be unhappy. NEW SITUATIONĪnnabelle has her knitting needles back. Interestingly, this explanation is entirely off the page. The needles will only work in Annabelle’s hands. I wonder how much help (if any) young readers need in understanding that the ‘magic’ comes from Annabelle herself. The archduke opens the box expecting to find yarn, but finds only knitting needles. He throws the box into the sea/ocean and it makes its way back to Annabelle, because of course it does, because this is a fairytale. Instead we delight in the trantrum of the archduke. We don’t see Annabelle’s reaction when she realises the box has been stolen. The animals from Klassen’s I Want My Hat Back make a cameo appearance. Humour comes from the visuals of Annabelle knitting jumpers for everything, not just people. So he sends people to steal the box in the middle of the night.

PLANĪnnabelle goes MOAH RAINBOW! And she knits a jumper for everyone.Īnnabelle refuses money for the box of ‘magic yarn’. He must plan to make even more money from Annabelle’s possession. The Minotaur opponent is the archduke who clearly represents the monied corporation. There’s also the neighbourhood kook who never wears jersies (is there someone like that in every town?) so Annabelle deals with him by knitting him a hat. The peers keep looking at her colourful jumper (an LGBTQIA+ acceptance motif?) so her teacher tells her to stop wearing it. DESIREįirst, Annabelle’s opponents are her peers and her teacher. In fact, she is so self-contained that she doesn’t have any psychological or moral weakness. She is a quirky kid, very much her own person.

This is Annabelle, and she attends school like a modern child, but other than that, this could be a fairytale. Modern picture books may use many tropes straight out of fairytale, but storytellers tend to name their characters. This looks like an ordinary box full of ordinary yarn.īut it turns out it isn’t. The Magic Porridge Pot is what this reminds me of most, because the overflowing porridge changes the town as significantly as Annabelle changes the look of the town.īut in plot, this story is more like The Magic Paintbrush, a Chinese folktale which has been re-visioned by other contemporary picture book creators such as The Magical Life Of Mr Renny by Leo Timmers. Such tales are classified by Aarne-Thompson as 565. There is also the bottomless object found in many fairytales, for instance the porridge in The Magic Porridge Pot. This is a fairytale setting, with a village where everyone knows each other, the local crank, and where aristocrats from across the water can hear about you and pay you a personal visit. Although this is a contemporary story, it utilises fairytale tropes, in a mostly fairytale setting. Extra Yarn (2012) is a picture book written by Mac Barnett and illustrated by Jon Klassen.

Jon klassen extra yarn