Sleepy Hollow Books

I was very pleased with this retelling of "The Legend of Sleepy Hollow." Donald Cook's illustrations will especially help in bringing the action to life for children. This book offers parents and children an opportunity to discuss the action and what they believe may have been the outcome based on the mysterious ending of the story. As other reviewers maintain, this is a great spooky story for kids.

My son LOVES this story, in all its many versions. Easy reading
(second grade) and lovely illustrations. A must have for those who love to be "spooked"!

This is a children's version of the Washington Irving ghost story. My 7-year-old son read it in one afternoon and loved it. This will get any child reading who is the least bit interested in scary stories. Especially recommended for kids who are a little too young for Goosebumps but desperately want to read them.

A classic, brilliantly written novel. A schoolmaster, and a little town in colonial New York, create a normal, sometimes humerous beginning to the novel. However, as the tale goes on, you hear of the Ledgend of the Headless horseman of Sleepy Hollow. This mysterious, classic thriller will have you sifting through the pages you'll never be prepared for the unexpected, climacting conclusion! A must read for any Halloween fan! Just a brilliant story, hands down.

I bought this CD last Halloween, and I just ordered one as a gift. I read the Library Jouranl review. WOW! has this reviewer ever read the book?? The "acting is over the top??" The BOOK is over the top! This recording nailed Washington Irving's beautiful words and brought the whole flavour of the book to life. The acting is great! Lincoln Clark is THE definative Ichabod Crane. The narration draws you in, and the music score deserves a CD of its own. This will surely be a Halloween tradition in my family. Library Journal - dust off the book and read it again. You will see that this production by the incredible Colonial Radio Theatre hits the nail on the head. It is a masterpiece!

This is excellent...5 stars...It does not get any better than this! How is that for a simple review? Well, I love audio dramas, and have been listening to them almost exclusively now for over a decade. I also love the writing of Washington Irving..So I feel the need to let the world know that finally someone has done my boy Washington Irving justice with his superb "legend of Sleepy Hollow". Colonial Radio hit the ball out of the park when they recorded this gem. The acting is FANTASTIC! They all captured the essence of these wonderfully absurd characters...I loved Icabod, as I loved Brom Bones. The narration too was a joy to behold (as he let Washington's prose speak for itself, though it was certainly performed with flair and pinache, just as one would perform a one man show...no dull audio book drone here). The Musical score was inspired (Three cheers for Mr. Gage), and the surprise musical number was a joy. I used to read this classic every October, now I make it a point of catching this chestnut while it is airing on XM radio, or I just pop in my CD. Great job Colonial, this truly is as good as it gets!

I make no bones about it. I am an Legend of Sleepy Hollow fanatic. I have loved the story ever since growing up in that wonderful region along the Tappan Zee. Every Autumn, I look forward to reliving what WAshington Irving so lovingly captured. This production is simply a wonder to behold. It captures the flavor and feel of what Mr. Irving with our doubt meant to present. I was stunned to discover (to their credit) that this production remained very faithful to the book (something rarely done in this Hip Hop age). This is a great CD and I hope everyone gets a chance to enjoy the acting and very powerful music score. Get a copy, you will be glad you did.

After listening to a friend's copy of Colonial Radio Theatre's "Legend of Sleepy Hollow" I decided to purchase some for myself and to give as gifts for next Halloween. Of all the audio or movie productions I know of, this is by far the only one most like Washington Irving's book.
What fascinates me is that Irving's sumptuous and colorful writing style has been lovingly captured by the actors. Even his wonderfully descriptive--not to mention extensive--narration is performed with ease, gently drawing the listener into the spirit-filled world of Sleepy Hollow.
I applaud the producers who, employing excellent production values, have chosen to maintain the integrity of the original book.

From the first page, the author's style was engaging and informative. I learned more about Washington Irving than I had imagined could be written about a 19th century author. He lived an illustrous life, especially during his 17 years in England, and he was acquainted with a virtual who's who of that period. I am eager to share this work by Brian Jay Jones to my biography-loving friends and believe they will share my enthusiasm for the contents of the book, as well as the author's colorful usage of the English language.

Once I got into Brian Jay Jones' biography of Washington Irving, I couldn't put it down. And I will say that it didn't seem like an automatic winner. I knew less than nothing about Irving, whose name I associated with the Walt Disney version of the Legend of Sleepy Hollow and with Rip van Winkle; that's about it. But now I feel I have been transported back by the scruff of my neck into the raucous, brawling and yet strangely elegant world of early America. An eager nurse trailed George Washington through the unpaved streets of downtown New York, and obliged him to stroke the tousled head of baby Washington Irving, guilt tripping him I suppose by saying that this baby was named after you, General! And thus it began, young Irving's vicarious association with nearly every president up until Abraham Lincoln (Irving finally died the year before Lincoln took office). Presidents I didn't even remember play in this fascinating story!

Brian Jay Jones speculates that we don't know, but that Irving at least in his youth might have had some sort of gay lifestyle, and I would agree, but after a wild youth his sense of fun seems to have disappeared in general, and the masks he invented early in life, the masks of the graying Diedrich Knickerbocker and the patrician Geoffrey Crayon, sort of froze onto his face right quick. And onto his genitals too? There doesn't seem to be one case of him actually having sex, but maybe people did things different back then? Maybe you could carouse around with your heavy-drinking bachelor friends till you were about thirty, having sex with them too, but that didn't count as a preference? Irving's talents changed over the years from the sly, anti-Jefferson provocations of his (faked) History of New York, to the mellow sounds of The Alhambra and Wolfert's Roost. He seemed fascinated by biography, and wrote lives of such disparate figures as Columbus, Oliver Goldsmith, and the prophet Mohammed (known then as "Mahomet"); even the teenaged "poetess" Margaret Miller Davidson came under his biographical gaze. He was a man of intense, if sometimes scattered curiosity, and many found him loveable. Brian Jay Jones excels at parsing out the strange passion the widow Mary Shelley conceived for Irving; this could have been a whole novel all by itself. He's good with people, the big and the small, the famous and the forgotten. Irving's encounters with his peers are especially well drawn; his infatuation with Walter Scott as a substitute father, a father of art; his rivalry with the firecracker James Fenimore Cooper; his kindness to the ambitious Edgar Allan Poe. When he meets up with Clark (from Lewis and Clark) on his trip to the frontier, it's like worlds smashing together, worlds of reference and power. And Jay Jones can also strip away the Victorian curtains of prudery which in the past have occluded our view of early Federal life; it is somehow reassuring to find Irving travelling through the hideous English pass through a mountain that his contemporaries called the "Devil's @sshole."

But he goes too far, I think, in his vocabulary which is continually anachronistic. The nurse who pestered George Washington is called a "presidential groupie." An entire chapter is called "Workaholic." At times of stress, he gets "burnt out." Then he has "a meltdown." Then he gets "a stalker of sorts." The Quarterly Review's attitude towards all things American? Snotty. Just a handful of dozens and dozens of tacky neologisms, slips into a modern, suburban vocabulary that somehow distort what one feels the real emotional experience must have been for Irving, by re-casting him and his life into sound-bites of pop psychology, while the real thing must have been fuller or at any rate more tentative than Jones gives it credit for. Reduce reductiveness, Jones, for otherwise your life of Irving is first rate.

This book is refreshing, original and well written. Mr. Jones' prose is vibrant and alive. Most likely, Mr. Irving would have been pleased--although perplexed as to why it has taken so long--that his writing and life are getting such literary care. Good job Mr. Jones.

I make no bones about it. I am an Legend of Sleepy Hollow fanatic. I have loved the story ever since growing up in that wonderful region along the Tappan Zee. Every Autumn, I look forward to reliving what WAshington Irving so lovingly captured. This production is simply a wonder to behold. It captures the flavor and feel of what Mr. Irving with our doubt meant to present. I was stunned to discover (to their credit) that this production remained very faithful to the book (something rarely done in this Hip Hop age). This is a great CD and I hope everyone gets a chance to enjoy the acting and very powerful music score. Get a copy, you will be glad you did.

This is excellent...5 stars...It does not get any better than this! How is that for a simple review? Well, I love audio dramas, and have been listening to them almost exclusively now for over a decade. I also love the writing of Washington Irving..So I feel the need to let the world know that finally someone has done my boy Washington Irving justice with his superb "legend of Sleepy Hollow". Colonial Radio hit the ball out of the park when they recorded this gem. The acting is FANTASTIC! They all captured the essence of these wonderfully absurd characters...I loved Icabod, as I loved Brom Bones. The narration too was a joy to behold (as he let Washington's prose speak for itself, though it was certainly performed with flair and pinache, just as one would perform a one man show...no dull audio book drone here). The Musical score was inspired (Three cheers for Mr. Gage), and the surprise musical number was a joy. I used to read this classic every October, now I make it a point of catching this chestnut while it is airing on XM radio, or I just pop in my CD. Great job Colonial, this truly is as good as it gets!

This story deserves to be read in Hardcover. Not a Halloween goes by when I do not yearn to spend a little quality time with Icabod, Brom Bones, and the rest of those nervous inhabitants of Sleepy Hollow.

You must remember the cartoon, the flaming jack-o-lantern hurled at poor Ichabod. Or the movie with Johnny Depp? There are many adaptations, but there is only one original, and this is it.

the legend of sleepy hollow is a mystery story it made me feel exited.thisis a summery about it.just a ordanary man in a little town named ichabod crane. and he fell in love one day same as another named brom they both had a crush on the same girl named katriena . she danced with ihabod every night . then they got marryed. brom got enveous then he left ichabod out cold with his horse . I would reccomend this book for people who like exciting adventures.

I picked this version because of the illustrations and it became a part of my personal library some years back. Every year in the fall, I return to Sleepy Hollow and to Icabod's misadventure with the Hessian. A unique tale by Mr. Washington and I especially enjoy the mysterious ending, leaving the reader to wonder the were abouts of Icabod Crane and the Headless Horseman.

Whenever I venture at twilight out in to the forest for a walk in the moonlight, I am often reminded of the Legend of Sleepy Hollow and it's local ghost habitant who haunts the town riding in the shadows with it's pumpkin head by it's side.



LadyGray

Author of White Holly



A note: When I was a child my family and I lived in a tiny community in Falls Church, Va called none other than "Sleepy Hollow". We lived on Crane Drive. The elementary school I attended at that time was Sleepy Hollow Elementary.

My students love these stories as it travels back in time. I love the stories as it has sparked an interest in history.

The Legend of Sleepy Hollow is the best book I ever read.And when Icibod Crane hears the storys about the HEADLESS HORSEMAN! He got really scared and falls in love with a girl named KATRINA the doughter of a rich farmer. But Icibod had some compittion,a man named BROMBONZ.He was tough but Icibod was sure that he would be the one to marry the lovely KATRINA.