Molto suggestivo, anche grazie alle illustrazioni di David Roberts, però alla fine rimane poco. Forse anche a motivo di uno stile piano e scorrevole, ma poco evocativo. ( )

I loved the art in this book, it really added to the reading experience for me. I love modernized fairy tales, and while this one still had a historical setting (The Thirty Years War - 1618-1648), the contemporary writing style and illustrations gave it a more modern feel. The story was sad - the main character was basically an everyman but I still grew to like him and wanted him to be happy. ( )

“My captain once said that you meet people in your life who you believe will be your companions on the road, only to discover that they fall by the wayside. Others who you meet without design climb mountains with you,”

Forget Disney's fairy tales with a pure love story, a mawkish happy ending and as the most terrifying element an ugly witch. Tinder will make you shiver with its creepy settings and even creepier drawings! (Which I actually loved a lot).

As written in the plot, the story is a retelling of a Handersen's fairy tale thought for a more adult public. In fact the content can be a little bit splatter and horror, so if you don't like the genres you may prefer something else.
I gave it three stars for these reasons: I appreciated the modernization of the tale, but the style was a little bit boring. Moreover, I don't know if it's due to the Italian translation or not, the too many commas made it worse. Last, I didn't understand at all many of the choices of the main character and there were a couple of time gaps that confused me a little.
The ending was surely shocking, I didn't expect it at all.

To sum up, I found it a nice reading even if nothing spectacular.
( )

More than a retelling of Hans Andersen's haunting The Tinderbox, which I have loved since childhood, Tinder mixes fairytale and the grim realities of the Thirty Years War to make an unnerving and compelling new story with influences which seem to range from Goya to Robert Louis Stevenson. I particularly loved the cast of folktale grotesques, beautifully completed by David Roberts' black and white (and red) drawings. The deft blend of dream-logic and conventional plotting pulled me along from one episode to the next while I was still pondering the hidden meanings and resonances of what I had just read. The historical setting means this is not just fairytale and fairytale ultimately cannot save the hero from his fate, try as it might. It also means that there are some serious themes here, including rape and other horrors of war. My 14-year-old son read it when he was working his way through the Carnegie shortlist this year and I then handed it to his 11-year-old sister. My son was horrified when he realised she had read it. Now I've read it myself, I think I would still have given her the book, but I wish I had known more about it so we could have discussed them with her (although parents tend to worry about these things too much -- the darker and more mature themes often go over children's heads). The only disappointing part of the story happens near the end: fairytales are allowed a lot of licence, but what happens on the gallows feels a bit like cheating. ( )

The Thirty Years War, Germany, after the Battle of Breitenfeld. Wounded soldier Otto Hundebiss encounters Death gathering his fallen comrades, but manages to persuade him to let him live. Shortly after he is found and cared for by a strange half-man half-beast, who gives Otto three dice which will guide his steps. But this is only the beginning of Otto's adventures, which see him fall in love with a spirited girl and encounter werewolves, ghosts, a witch or two and black magic.

From the beginning this felt like an old-fashioned fairy tale (in the best sense of the word), with several well-known devices particular to that genre (the magic number three, a curse and someone suffering under a spell) used to good effect, yet it also took a completely different direction to the one I had expected, with a surprising twist at the end of the tale. It manages to be thought-provoking in the right way (i.e. without raising an admonishing finger) and deals with fairly adult notions like war, slaughter and rape, with the descriptions being quite explicit and not leaving much to the imagination.

In the author's notes at the end of the book, Sally Gardner explains that her story is based on Hans Christian Andersen's fairy tale 'The Tinderbox', which I happen to have on my shelf, as yet unread. I feel this is a good opportunity to read it and learn how it inspired the author.

Rather unusually for a YA book, this has striking black-and-white illustrations (with a little red added in places for good measure) by David Roberts, that underpin the story and even enhance it in places. In my opinion, they raise the book from a good to a very good read. ( )