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A review by brucefarrar
Brother Hugo and the Bear by S.D. Schindler, Katy Beebe
4.0
On the first day of Lent, in medieval France, Brother Hugo confesses to his Abbot that he cannot return his library book because a bear ate it. The penance imposed on him is to travel to another monastery and borrow its copy of the same book, and make another copy to replace the one the bear ate, and get it done within forty days. But on the way there and back Brother Hugo is bothered by the same bear who has developed a taste for literature inscribed in bundles of tasty sheepskin.
To her gently humorous tale of Brother Hugo’s trials scholar Beebe adds a historical note about monasteries and manuscripts, a glossary, and a note about the inspirations for her tale. Schindler, borrowing many of the elements of medieval illuminated manuscripts for his illustrations, also tells how his artistic process in the twenty-first century differed and in some ways was the same as Brother Hugo’s would have been in the twelfth.
To her gently humorous tale of Brother Hugo’s trials scholar Beebe adds a historical note about monasteries and manuscripts, a glossary, and a note about the inspirations for her tale. Schindler, borrowing many of the elements of medieval illuminated manuscripts for his illustrations, also tells how his artistic process in the twenty-first century differed and in some ways was the same as Brother Hugo’s would have been in the twelfth.