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The Iron Giant by Ted Hughes
Book Summary InformationAuthor: Ted Hughes Illustrator: Andrew Davidson Edition: Paperback Audio: English (Unknown); English (Original Language); English (Published) Published: 1999-07-20 ISBN: 0375801537 Number of pages: 96 Publisher: Yearling
Book Reviews of The Iron GiantBook Review: Ironic Iron Summary: 5 Stars
Neither children nor adults need know the intricacies of Ted Hughes' life to appreciate this book. In fact, they might be better off not knowing. England's poet laureate drove two wives to suicide--Sylvia Plath and, six years later, Assia Welville, who also murdered her child. Readers need know nothing about the Cold War, either, though Hughes clearly created this story as an allegory about the evil of war. He gave the characters very little development. Hogarth, the boy who centers the movie based very loosely on this book, functions as a sort of trigger. But there's not much explanation about why he acts, or why anyone acts, for that matter. Nevertheless, the plot will draw even the most tortured second-grade reader into its tangle of fantasy, words and poetry. And once there, he will find it impossible to escape until the book is done. (My favorite part is the music of the spheres--the music that space made, a strange soft music, deep and weird, like millions of voices singing together.) The Iron Giant came to the top of a cliff one night, no one knows how or from where he had come. The wind sang through his iron fingers, and his great iron head, shaped like a dustbin but big as a bedroom, slowly turned right, then slowly turned left. Down the cliff he fell, his iron legs, arms and ears breaking loose and falling off as he went. The pieces scattered, crashed, bumped, clanged down onto the rocky beach far below, where the sound of the sea chewed away at it, and the pieces of the Iron Giant lay scattered far and wide, silent and unmoving. See what I mean? When the Giant was discovered after biting a tractor in two, the farmers whose equipment he had ruined dug a deep enormous hole, a stupendous hole on the side of which they put a rusty old truck to attract him. Hogarth lured the Giant there, and when he finally came to the trap, the farmers filled it in on top of him and let out a great cheer. Of course, the Giant escaped, and Hogarth (who felt guilty) found a home for him in the local scrap yard, where he could eat tractors to his heart's content. Then arrived from Space a terribly black, terribly scaly, terribly knobbly, terribly horned, terribly hairy, terribly clawed, terribly fanged creature with vast indescribably terrible eyes, each one as big as Switzerland. It landed in Australia, where it covered the whole continent, and all the armies of the world decided to fight this space-bat-angle-dragon, who demanded live creatures as food. They declared war and lost. It was Hogarth's idea to call upon the Iron Giant for help. I won't tell you how the story ended. But the important point, for grown-ups at least, is that in creating his 1968 Cold War space-bat-angle-dragon, the erstwhile pacifist poet Hughes also created a vision of evil incarnate--the kind of evil that wishes to engulf the entire world, that cannot be reasoned with, cannot be pacified and must be fought. Ironic, isn't it? Alyssa A. Lappen
Summary of The Iron GiantAn iron giant saves the world in this contemporary classic. A mysterious creature stalks the land, eating barbed wire and devouring tractors and plows. The farmers are mystified?and terrified. And then they glimpse him in the night: the Iron Giant, taller than a house, with glowing headlight eyes and an insatiable taste for metal. The hungry giant must be stopped at any cost. Only a young boy named Hogarth is brave enough to lead the Iron Giant to a safe home. And only Hogarth knows where to turn when a space-bat as big as Australia, hungry for every living thing on Earth, darkens the sky. First published in 1968, Ted Hughes's classic tale is a powerful tribute to peace on earth?and in all the universe. Of it Madeleine L'Engle wrote, "How grateful we should be for Ted Hughes's brilliant The Iron Giant. It speaks to all ages, and we need its message even more now." Philip Pullman called it "so gripping that when you begin to read it aloud, everyone stops to listen, young children and old people alike." Whether you think of it as a science fiction fantasy or a modern fairy tale or a tall-tale parable for today, you will never forget it. A huge, mysterious iron man stands at the top of a cliff, surveying the ocean. His eyes glow white, red, infrared. Then, he lifts one enormous foot and steps out into nothingness. Crraaasssssh! His head, arms, legs, ears, hands all break off as he tumbles onto the rocks below. The end of the story? No, it's only the beginning of this modern parable of peace in the universe. The Iron Giant has an insatiable appetite for barbed wire, tractors, and rusty chains. While farmers and townspeople run around trying to stop him, destroy him, capture him, only one boy understands what must be done. Meanwhile, an even bigger threat hovers over the land, in the shape of an evil-looking space-bat-angel-dragon. How will the people of the world survive the impending doom? Ted Hughes, poet laureate of England, first wrote this compelling tall tale in 1968. Clearly, the need for its message of peace has not diminished in the decades since. Simple, repetitive sentences carry the mesmerizing spirit of traditional fairy tales. And Andrew Davidson's black-and-white illustrations, with their menacing air and timeless appeal, drive the point home in vivid style. (Ages 8 and older) --Emilie Coulter
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