MY NEWEST BOOK

Hot off the press---the padded board book edition of one of my best-loved titles, Bedtime Bunnies. Now in a chewable format for all my youngest readers! Go to http://wendy-watson.com/books/bedtime-bunnies-board.html

to read reviews and to order from your favorite merchant.

And if you are longing for an autographed, personalized copy of the original hardcover edition, you can order that at my Etsy store:   https://www.etsy.com/shop/wendywatsonstudio.

I"ll see you there!

WHY WRITE FOR CHILDREN?

Photo of a fan with "Jakob Jakobsen", the Danish edition of my book "Jamie's Story." 

This very young man hasn't yet learned to email, so it's his mother who sent me this photo, and told me how much he loves this book. (And yes, she gave me permission to use it in this post.) Over the years, many adults have told me how much one of my books meant to them as a child. Perhaps this fan will also, one day, do the same. 

Is there any better reward for one's life work than this?

LEO LIONNI

Leo Lionni...author, illustrator, designer, art director, multi-talented creator...was born in the Netherlands on May 5, 1910, and died October 11, 1999 in Italy. He studied and worked as a painter and in advertising in Italy; then from about 1939 to 1962 he lived in the US, where he worked as a prominent advertising artist and art director.

Ad art for Container Corporation of America

His body of work exhibits an astounding versatility.

Fortune Magazine was one of his biggest clients.

Ad for Olivetti Typewriter

His work was often a startling break from the realistic images... 

Art for Colored Paper ad

...that dominated much of advertising at the time.

It would take a book-length post to cover all of the diversity and extraordinary vision this artist displayed in his work.

It wasn't until Lionni moved back to Italy around 1962 that he turned to the creation of children's books. By this time he had already honed his art to an exceptionally high level...

...and he brought all of that training, skill, and power, undiminished, to this new-to-him field.

Illustration from "Fish Is Fish"

The control, confidence, strength of his illustrations---and the whimsy, freedom, imagination, and child-like accessibility---burst forth from every page of his books.

Illustration from "Frederick"

So simple, so full of color (even in grays and neutrals)---so full of wit, joy, and energy---

Illustration from "It's Mine"

---art of this caliber in children's books is hard to find. A discussion of Lionni's storytelling gifts would fill yet more posts. I hope you will use the links below to find out more about this wonderful artist.

http://todaysinspiration.blogspot.com/2009/09/cover-story-fortune-magazine.html

http://www.printmag.com/daily-heller/designers-who-play-with-colored-paper/

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leo_Lionni

http://www.randomhousekids.com/brand/leo-lionni/about-leo-lionni/

LISTEN, LOOK

I was recently contacted by Ali Seidabadi, an Iranian editor and author. Seidabadi is promoting a series of picture books that are being published by Tiny Owl, a British publishing house; he would like to bring them to the attention of an American audience. The books will be translations of picture books from around the world, and Seidabadi is involved with a series of Iranian books.

Today I received one of the books from the Iranian series: "A Rainbow In My Pocket", by Ali Seidabadi, illustrated by Hada Haddadi. Author and illustrator are both highly respected in Iran.

When I read the words other people have written, or look at the pictures they have made, I feel as though my soul is reaching out and clasping hands with their soul. The words and pictures in this book are different from what I usually see and hear in an American picture book. But I also recognize the commonalities, and feel an understanding of Iranian culture that I didn't have before. The pages are intriguing...free... playful...resonating with the creative love and humanity that children's book writers and artists all over the world pour into their works.

It's not just professional creators who can speak to us in this way. Everyone has something of themselves to tell or to show, whoever he is, wherever she comes from. Everyone wants to be heard and seen. Today, let's listen to someone's story or look at someone's picture, in whatever medium it comes. It might be from an Iranian on the other side of the globe; or from a stranger a few states away; or from the person sitting next to us. Listen. Look. Reach across the divide. Help bring us closer together.

http://tinyowl.co.uk/ali-seidabadi/
https://www.facebook.com/ali.seidabadi
http://tinyowl.co.uk

AWARD TIME 2016

Today the American Library Association announced its annual "Youth Media Awards", among them the Randolph Caldecott Medal for the most distinguished American picture book for children. 

This year's winner is "Finding Winnie"---the story of how A. A. Milne's Winnie-The-Pooh came to be.

Sophie Blackall created the award-winning illustrations.

The author was Lindsay Mattick.

Celebrate by clicking on the links below to find out more about illustrator, author, and book.

http://www.sophieblackall.com

http://www.lindsaymattick.com

http://www.hachettebookgroup.com/titles/lindsay-mattick/finding-winnie/9780316324908/#desc

COMING UP FOR AIR

I'm no good at multi-tasking. So when several book ideas grabbed me by the ear six months ago and began to harrass me, blogging went by the board. Six months later, I've sent three manuscripts with sample art off to my agent for her to peddle. And I'm back at blogging.

Picture Book #1

Publishing being what it is, I can't really show off my darlings. But I'm giving you a hint.

Picture Book #2

And another hint.

Graphic Novella

And another.

Unfortunately---again, publishing being what it is---the soonest you will ever be able to see much more of these three projects will be at least one year from now. Unless you can come in person to my studio---there you can be the first to see whatever it is I'm working on, at whatever stage it happens to be.

TO CENSOR OR NOT TO CENSOR

 I won't dive in to the deep waters of the discussion over whether to censor traditional fairy tales for young readers---whether to take out the gruesome or scary parts, whether to make sure they have morally correct endings, and so on. That discussion has been carried on by life-long students of literature, child development, mythologies, and the like; and it began with the very first publication of the Grimm's brothers collection in 1812---or even earlier. I would be in way over my head if I joined this group.

from "Grimm's Fairy Tales, Complete Edition, illustrated by Josef Scharl"

But I can dabble here in the shallows, and talk about my own experiences with fairy tales. 

from "Andersen's Fairy Tales", illustrated by Arthur Szyk

As a child, I read voraciously. I took armfuls of the books I had chosen out of the public library; and I read and re-read the volumes that filled the bookshelves and cluttered the rooms in our home. Fairy tales were one of my main staples.

from "Grimm's Fairy Tales," illustrated by Fritz Kredel

As a child, life could be bewildering, confusing, hurtful; even terrifying. I didn't consciously realize it then, but I know now that immersing myself in fairy tales helped me to navigate the turbulent parts of my days---to integrate all those contradictory parts into a cohesive whole.

Paper Sculpture, by Su Blackwell http://www.sublackwell.co.uk/#

I am glad that my parents did not try to control what I read. I am glad that I had access to the magic, symbolism, metaphor, and mythology of uncensored fairy tales. I was too young to understand logical and intellectual explanations about life, but I could understand the messages embedded in fairy tales. Fairy tales: for me, a treasure-house of wisdom. 

ERNEST AND MARY SHEPARD

Ernest Shepard was born in December...

...and his daughter, Mary Shepard, was also born in December.

If you don't recognize their names, I hope you certainly know their work---Ernest Shepard's classic illustrations for Pooh, Piglet, and company;

and Mary Shepard's classic illustrations for Mary Poppins and the Banks family.






Not surprisingly, the two illustrators have several things in common. The work of both artists falls into the category of traditional British illustration, and both bring this style to a magnificent peak. Their penwork is masterful, and their control of this black-and-white medium is unsurpassed. It looks simple---but just try to replicate it yourself. The reason, of course, that there were so many more-than-competent artists of this media during the end of the 1800's and the first half of the 1900's is that illustrations almost always had to be reproduced in black-and-white---in other words, printed with just one color. It was usually too expensive at that time to fill a child's book, for example---which had to be marketed at a reasonable price---with four-color reproductions. Keep in mind also that newspapers, magazines, and so on were illustrated almost always with drawings, not photographs. So artists had plenty of opportunities to hone their black-and-white skills.

Illustration from "The Wind In The Willows"

 Ernest Shepard had illustrated the classic Wind in the Willows shortly before he created Pooh and his cohorts. And he would have been the illustrator of Mary Poppins as well, if the author P. L. Travers had had her way. As it turned out, he was too busy to accept the job. 

Illustration from one of the many "Mary Poppins" books

Lest you think that Mary Shepard then got the commission through some kind of pulling-of-strings by her father---not at all. P. L. After the turn-down from Ernest, Travers saw some samples of Mary's work at an exhibition, and suggested that she be the illustrator. Mary Shepard was 23 years old, fresh out of the Slade School of Art. In those days, youth was not an advantage; some people were skeptical that the inexperienced Mary could do the job. But what a happy marriage of text and art! I do think myself that, as it turned out, Mary was the better choice. The style of her illustrations wanders a bit further from reality than did Ernest's, which seems to me to suit the text admirably. And the sturdy, no-nonsense feeling of her pen line captures Poppins's character perfectly.

Illustration from "The Wind In The Willows"

I've emphasized the black and white media of these two illustrators' work. Quite some time after their books were first published, when full color reproduction had become much less expensive, many of their books were re-issued with colored illustrations. Just bear in mind that if the full-colored illustrations are what you know, they were not what earlier generations of readers saw. 

 Please do visit the two links below to see a nice group of the work of each artist. Both of them created illustrations for a variety of material, not just the famous characters they created. It's always interesting to me to see that an artist had a creative life beyond what the public generally knows about. And do try to introduce their illustrations to the children---and adults---in your life. When I Google "Winnie-the-Pooh" or "Mary Poppins", all I see are pages and pages of Disney renderings. In contrast to Disney, the Shepard interpretations of those characters are complex and satisifying, and stick well to the ribs over a long period of time. 

http://www.chrisbeetles.com/artists/shepard-ernest-howard-mc-obe-1879-1976.htm

lhttp://www.chrisbeetles.com/artists/shepard-mary-1909-2000.html

WILLIAM PENE DU BOIS

Wiliam Pene Du Bois, an American author and illustrator, was born on May 19, 1916, into a family that had been producing visual artists for generations. Though I have not now been able to locate the source of this quote, I did read once a remark he made about this unusual family propensity. He said that if a young DuBois showed the slightest inclination to deviate from the ancestral profession of artist, that person was immediately bundled off to art school, thus (hopefully) nipping all wayward aspirations in the bud.

Du Bois's style of illustration was unique, distinctive, and immediately recognizable. He was educated primarily in France, and that surely influenced his work, giving it a European---or at least a non-American---flair.

His writing was equally inimitable, and he received the Newberry Medal for "The Twenty-One Balloons". (He also received two Caldecott Honors for his illustrations.)

His imagination was without boundaries; today some commentators call his work "science fiction"..a sort of Jules Verne for the younger set.

He loved his koala bears,

but humans and animals of all kinds

populate his books. 

Many of his titles are still in print---and for good reason! I encourage you to re-aquaint yourself with this artist's charming and stimulating work.

http://www.bookrags.com/biography/william-sherman-pene-du-bois-dlb/

http://www.nytimes.com/1993/02/07/nyregion/william-p-du-bois-is-dead-at-76-author-and-illustrator-for-children.html

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Pène_du_Bois

LIBRARIES I HAVE KNOWN - BLAKE MEMORIAL LIBRARY

My five postings this week are in honor of National Library Week, April 13-19

Blake Memorial Library, East Corinth, VT

When my two children were growing up, we lived in the small rural Vermont village of East Corinth. Within walking distance of our tiny 200-year-old house were the General Store, the Post Office---and the Blake Memorial Library. This was, and still is, the best kind of living situation I can imagine for myself. 

Original Blake Memorial Library building

The first Blake Memorial Library building, shown above in this photo, burned down in 1945.  It was replaced by the building that I and my children knew.

Blake Memorial was not only a collection of books.  The library's quirky interior was the designated spot for the Bridge Club, Children's Story Hours, and other library and community programs. More than that, it was a place for social connection.  If I had been buried in my studio for hours and days, meeting an all-too-close deadline, and suddenly realized I was desperate for human contact, the solution was right at hand. I had only to walk out my door, go down the street to the Blake Memorial, and spend a pleasant hour or two of conversation with Bev Longo the librarian, and any other of my neighbors who happened to be there. 

The Blake Memorial Library, and the center of East Corinth, also has an unusual claim to fame: the town was the setting, when we were living there, for much of the filming of the cult movie Beetlejuice. After a while, though, the thrill of the filming began to wear off, and the excitement turned into disruption for most inhabitants. It was good to finally return to being just a small Vermont town---with a General Store, a Post Office...and a Library.

For more about the Blake Memorial Library, follow these links:

http://www.blakememorial.org

http://librariesthatwork.blogspot.com/2010/10/blake-memorial-library-in-east-corinth.html