The Original

Have you heard of William Steig? He was a famous cartoonist for the New Yorker starting in 1930 and had won many awards for his children's books. He passed away in 2003. I had read his book Doctor De Soto about a mouse dentist who has different animals for his patients, but I didn't know that was the same author until I looked it up online after I spotted this book at the library and just had to check it out. It is pretty similar to the DreamWorks' Shrek movie in some ways and very different in others. There's an ugly green ogre named Shrek who is mean. He meets a donkey and they go together to rescue an ugly princess from a castle where he sees a dragon protecting the gate.
The dragon ends up being nice and he gets to rescue his princess with no name. She is very ugly, not like the more likeable Fiona. There were no funny fairy tale characters and no Lord Farquaad to laugh at. Sabrina said that the story was confusing. It did use some unusal vocabulary for small children. Although we probably won't be checking it out again, I thought it was fun to see the original Shrek.