The Business of Reading,

Abstract

sickbed to an empty bed with Helen as an angel flying in the sky. The fingerhole to slide someone’s arm up and down was the least convincing device. When you move his arm, is St. John waving? Jane’s arm moves a jug of water up and down in front of Rochester’s burning bed, but there is no sense of the water ‘splashing’ or moving to put out the fire, though there is the interesting visual element of roses scattered on the floor. Jane has emptied a vase of roses in order to use the water to extinguish the fire—another allusion to a film version. My favourite pull-tab is the one at the beginning of the story: pulling back a red curtain reveals Jane in a window seat. However, while the candelabra and rose-in-a-vase are there, there are no books. Jane is gazing thoughtfully at the starry night sky. The text tells us that she ‘love[s] to read and draw’, but in a book meant to engage children with reading literature, failing to portray Jane as a child reading a book is a missed opportunity. Despite these minor quibbles, I found the experience of reading this children’s adaptation to be rewarding. The book leads from image to thought, visually presenting a winding path leading to Thornfield Hall on the front cover that is, in the end, transformed into the winding stem of Jane’s final ‘thought bubble’ describing her contentment with marrying Mr Rochester. If you do feel compelled to introduce a child to the story of Jane Eyre before an encounter with Charlotte Bront€e’s novel, this book is definitely a recommended way of beginning the journey.