![]() ![]() Hughes dedicated the book to his children, Frieda and Nicholas, for whom their tragically fated mother, Sylvia Plath, had written a very different children’s book a decade earlier. Burning with the cosmic enthusiasm of the Space Age, it is also a love letter to astronomy and space exploration. ![]() Written at the height of the Cold War and two years after Umberto Eco’s similarly-spirited children’s book about tolerance, the story is a parable of peace, a warning against warfare, and a reminder of the vulnerable and vivacious humanity that unites us beneath our surface squabbles. So begins the extraordinary 1968 novel The Iron Man by English poet laureate Ted Hughes (August 17, 1930–October 28, 1998), published in North America as The Iron Giant - a magnificent modern-day fairy tale for all ages. His iron ears turned, this way, that way. His great iron head, shaped like a dustbin but as big as a bedroom, slowly turned to the right, slowly turned to the left. Taller than a house, the Iron Giant stood at the top of the cliff, on the very brink, in the darkness. “The Iron Giant came to the top of the cliff. ![]()
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