One Eye, Two Eyes, Three Eyes

by Eric A. Kimmel, Dirk Zimmer (Illustrator)

To honor her father's promise, a beautiful young girl agrees to become the slave of a witch and her two daughters, enduring their cruelty with the help of her talking pet goat.

Genres: Picture Books, Folklore

32 pages, Hardcover

First published September 1, 1996

About the author

Eric A. Kimmel is an American author of more than 150 children's books. His works include Caldecott Honor Book Hershel and the Hanukkah Goblins (illustrated by Trina Schart Hyman), Sydney Taylor Book Award winners The Chanukkah Guest and Gershon's Monster, and Simon and the Bear: A Hanukkah Tale.
Kimmel was born in Brooklyn, New York and earned a bachelor's degree in English literature from Lafayette College in 1967, a master's degree from New York University, and a PhD in Education from the University of Illinois in 1973. He taught at Indiana University at South Bend, and at Portland State University, where he is Professor Emeritus of Education.
Kimmel lives with his wife, Doris, in Portland, Oregon.

Reviews

[Abigail · Rating 3 out of 5]

When a Hutzul peasant becomes lost in the woods in this folktale from Ukraine, he stumbles across a three-eyed witch, and is aided in getting home, in return for his promise to repay his debt by giving the witch his most prized possession. This turns out to be his daughter Larissa, who must slave away for Three Eyes and her two daughters, One Eye and Two Eye. Fortunately, the beautiful young girl has a magical talking goat to aid her in her troubles. But what will happen when Three Eyes discovers this caprine helper, and kills it...?

According to author Eric A. Kimmel's brief author's note, this story, which is quite similar to one found in the Brothers Grimm, was passed down to him by his grandmother, who heard it in the Ukrainian town of Kolomyya. The Hutzuls (or Hutsuls), are a Slavic ethnic group that has sometimes been identified as a sub-group of the Ukrainians, but who regard themselves as related to the Rusyns (or Ruthenians). Leaving that aside, this was an interesting story, and had many elements - the child who is repayment of their parent's debt, the magical animal helper who continues to aid the hero/heroine even after death - that will be familiar to folklore lovers. The accompanying artwork from Dirk Zimmer, who also illustrated such titles as Alvin Schwartz's In a Dark, Dark Room and Other Scary Stories and Joanna Cole's Bony-Legs , had a cartoon-like quality that was quite interesting, even when not quite to my taste. Recommended to young folklore enthusiasts, and to picture-book readers interested in Eastern European/Slavic lore.

[Beverly · Rating 4 out of 5]

Loved the retelling of this Ukrainian story; did not like the illustrations.

[Brian · Rating 3 out of 5]

Sometimes bad things happen for absolutely no reason at all.

This poor hapless forest dweller stumbles upon a witch who then ruins his life. She tricks him into giving away his daughter for directions out of the forest. What happens to him after that? No idea. Maybe he won the lottery or died or was run over by a large elk.

The daughter is then enslaved with her magical goat, her one true friend, and forced to endlessly toil an suffer physical, verbal, emotional abuse. Not sad enough? Let's kill the goat for no good reason other than the goat helped the girl accomplish a task which was solely intended to make the girl miserable and suffer beatings when she failed to accomplish it.

The goat takes all of this in stride. Not just when the girl is sent away to be a slave, but when the evil witch decides it is time to kill the goat she basically shrugs and says, "Yeah sometimes bad things happen for no reason."

[Allison Greg · Rating 4 out of 5]

I really enjoyed the retelling of the Ukrainian tale. My favorite part of the story was the illustrations. I realized half of the way through that there are eyeballs incorporated in the scenery on each page, so I went back through to find all of them.

[JoAnna · Rating 2 out of 5]

This story is about a man walking through the woods and he becomes lost. A witch, Three Eyes, greets him and says she will help him but only if he gives her his most prized possession. He finally returns home and realizes his daughter, Larissa, is gone and she is his most prized possession that he gave away. Now Larissa must be a slave to Three Eyes and her two daughters. However, when a prince comes by, she escapes. Kimmel used colorful illustrations are anything but scary and make the witches look almost funny. It would be a great book to use with younger students when talking about fairytales. Another activity would to have the students come up with their own fairytale after reading this story.

[Janet · Rating 4 out of 5]

I enjoyed this folktale as well as the illustrations--almost everyone of them had mushrooms depicted, usually very small ones on the forest floor.
Also I liked the illustration of the witch, three eyes, as she had a realistic bustline! Hutzuls are an ethnic group of people living in the Carpathian mountains. This particular tale was just different enough to really keep my attention. The maiden, Larissa, must spin to save herself and is aided by her white goat.

[Cana · Rating 4 out of 5]

Mommy says: Cana especially likes this book.

[Cheryl · Rating 4 out of 5]

The story is just a little bit gruesome. The illustrations were simple but colorful.

[Michael Fitzgerald · Rating 2 out of 5]

Weak cartoonish illustrations.