Five picture books for #fivewomenartists

Can you name five women artists? It's surprisingly difficult for most people, even more so if you leave out the big three: Mary Cassatt, Frida Kahlo, Georgia O'Keeffe. This March, for Women's History Month, the National Museum for Women in the Arts (NMWA) is leading a social media campaign to share stories of women artists using the hashtag #fivewomenartists. I'm doing my part by sharing this list of five great picture books about women artists. Not including Cassatt, Kahlo, or O'Keeffe, although there are some gorgeous picture books about them, too!

Louise Bourgeois, M is for Mother, 1998, pen and ink with colored pencil and graphite, National Gallery of Art, Washington

Cloth Lullaby: The Woven Life of Louise Bourgeois by Amy Novesky; illustrated by Isabelle Arsenault (Abrams, 2016). As a child,  20th-century artist and sculptor Louise Bourgeois learned to weave and repair tapestries alongside her mother in the family's tapestry restoration workshop. This experience inspired some of her most powerful works, including a series of steel spider sculptures--the largest of which is called Maman.

Four Pictures by Emily Carr by Nicolas Debon (Groundwood, 2003). Emily Carr (1871-1945) is one of Canada's most renowned artists; her work is now exhibited with and compared to Kahlo's and O'Keeffe's. In this graphic novel, Debon traces Carr's life story through four of her best paintings (also reproduced here).

Summer Birds: The Butterflies of Maria Merian by Margarita Engle; illustrated by Julie Paschkis (Henry Holt, 2010). I interviewed Margarita about this book when it first came out six years ago, and I still love it. Told in the voice of the young Maria Merian, 17th-century Dutch artist and naturalist.

Beatrix Potter and the Unfortunate Tale of a Borrowed Guinea Pig by Deborah Hopkinson; illustrated by Charlotte Voake (Shwartz and Wade, 2016). Spoiler alert: the guinea pig DIES. But if you can get past that, this is a charming book, and the picture-letter format is similar to how Beatrix Potter's own early stories were written. There's even a P.S. (the author's note). 

Stand There! She Shouted: The Invincible Photographer Julia Margaret Cameron by Susan Goldman Rubin; illustrated by Bagram Ibatoulline (Candlewick, 2014) AND Imogen: The Mother of Modernism and Three Boys by Amy Novesky; illustrated by Lisa Congdon (Cameron + Company, 2012). Not one but two picture book biographies of photographers, Julia Margaret Cameron (British, 1815-79) and Imogen Cunningham (American, 1883-1976). 

There. Now if anyone should ask you to name five women artists, you're all set (and then some--don't forget the illustrators of these books). Of course, you probably already were. Who's on your list?

First Impressions: Andrew Wyeth

My grandmother had a framed print of Christina's World (1948) by Andrew Wyeth, and even though I've never seen the actual painting (I wonder if she had? It's in the MoMA's collection), I still love it. It's such an evocative image. So I'm excited about the National Gallery's forthcoming exhibition, Andrew Wyeth: Looking Out, Looking In, featuring another favorite Wyeth painting, Wind from the Sea (1947); and reading a bit about Wyeth in advance.

Fortunately, I have my own copy of First Impressions: Andrew Wyeth by Richard Meryman (Abrams, 1991). Meryman, who first met Wyeth while writing an article for LIFE magazine in 1964, became a friend of the artist and has gone on to publish a number of books about Wyeth and his work, most recently A Spoken Self-Portrait (NGA, 2013). Their friendship undoubtedly informs Meryman's biography of Wyeth, written while Wyeth was still living; the author describes it as "a distillation of years of talk and understanding." It's part of the First Impressions series of artist's biographies developed especially for older middle grade and young adult audiences and published by Abrams in the 1990s--insightful and thorough, these are all well worth seeking out.

Susan Goldman Rubin covers a bit more ground in Everybody Paints! The Lives and Art of the Wyeth Family (Chronicle, 2014), including three generations of artists, N.C. (Andrew's father), Andrew, and Jamie (his son). Also part of a series (I reviewed Rubin's Delicious: The Life and Art of Wayne Thiebaud here; Wideness and Wonder is about Georgia O'Keeffe), Rubin's book would make an interesting comparison with Meryman's, at least as far as Andrew is concerned. I will report back.

Book Sale Business

I've started to branch out from the biannual Friends Book Sales at Arlington Central Library--this morning I went all the way to Falls Church (a distance of two and a half miles) to check out the American Association of University Women book sale and came home with a small stack of children's books and a couple of hardcovers for my husband and son, too.

I followed my usual book sale protocol, which is to head straight for the middle grade paperbacks. In this case, there wasn't a lot of pre-sorting--all the children's books were mixed up in boxes, fiction, nonfiction, YA, picture books, everything. The pricing scheme wasn't what I was used to, either: all paperbacks (children's and adult) were $2, hardcovers $3. Fortunately, "thin paperbacks" were only a dollar, which is still twice what one pays at the Friends sales. Also fortunately, the cashier agreed with me on the thinness of my paperbacks. One of my hardcovers  (Folk Toys Around the World and How to Make Them by Joan Joseph, 1972) was thin enough to qualify for a discount, too.

One thing I noticed about my new (old) books is the presence and quality of the interior art: black and white line drawings, mostly, by Erik Blegvad (who died earlier this year), N.M. Bodecker, Alan Cober, Margery Gill. Gill's illustrations are among my favorites, and I'm particularly pleased to have picked up a copy of Dawn of Fear by Susan Cooper because of them (here Gill was informed by her own childhood memories of WWII). But I'm reading A Candle in Her Room by Ruth M. Arthur (also illustrated by Gill) first.

Trina Schart Hyman

Today would have been Trina Schart Hyman's 75th birthday. She won the Caldecott Medal in 1985 for Saint George and the Dragon, retold (from Spenser's Faerie Queene) by Margaret Hodges (Little, Brown; 1984; the cover image here is from the 25th anniversary edition, featuring the dragon. TSH did magnificent dragons), and three Honors as well: for Little Red Riding Hood, Hershel and the Hanukkah Goblins, and A Child's Calendar. She illustrated over 150 books, not to mention countless covers (including Ronia, the Robber's Daughter by Astrid Lindgren) and black-and-white interior illustrations.

I could go on, but this post isn't meant to be an encyclopedia entry. I simply wanted to say that in my imagination, the landscape of fairy tales is illustrated by Trina Schart Hyman. And thanks to her, that landscape is also peopled by a racially diverse cast of characters. It's a notable quality, especially of her later work, and one that is still too scarce today.

[Image from Bearskin by Howard Pyle, illustrated by Trina Schart Hyman (HarperCollins, 1997).]

The Scraps Book by Lois Ehlert

Small and square, The Scraps Book: Notes from a Colorful Life (Beach Lane Books, 2014) by Lois Ehlert is actually bursting with images and inspiration drawn from the picture book maker's long career. It's unmistakably Ehlert, down to the round typeface of the main text (I think it's Century Schoolbook) and the handwritten notes (in place of the sans serif labels used in most of her books) adding another level of detail. Maybe a little messier, though, since The Scraps Book is all about process (and, Ehlert tells us, "I'm messy when I work"). In words and images, she shares where her book ideas come from, how to make a storyboard, the art technique of collage (often using recycled or natural materials), a recipe for bird treats...The Scraps Book is stuffed full of interesting things to inspire young (and not-so-young) readers, writers, and artists, right where they are. 

Instead of a bibliography, there's a double-page spread of Ehlert's book covers at the end. I was surprised at how many of them we had read and remembered: Planting a Rainbow, Eating the Alphabet (the IJKL page was our favorite, followed closely by the letter Pp, which got two pages), Waiting for Wings, and Feathers for Lunch (a good choice to read alongside The Scraps Book, which includes a series of spreads showing how Feathers for Lunch went from idea to finished book).

Warwick Hutton

I've just rediscovered the work of Warwick Hutton, a British author and illustrator of retellings--mythological, biblical, folk and fairy tales of all sorts. Hutton's illustrations are rendered in delicate pen-and-ink and watercolor wash and characterized by spacious sea and landscapes; oversized yet oddly graceful figures, of both people and animals; and lots of interesting compositional elements. We own only one of his books, a retelling by Susan Cooper of The Silver Cow: A Welsh Tale (Atheneum, 1985), in which the Tylwyth Teg reward a farmer's son for his playing of the harp with a beautiful, bountiful silver cow--until the greedy farmer goes a bit too far, and loses her and all the silver cows that had been born to her: the treasures of his herd. (Hutton also illustrated Cooper's retelling of The Selkie Girl; I don't like selkie stories, so I haven't read that one.)

I especially like Hutton's own retellings of Greek myths, though; these include Theseus and the Minotaur (my favorite), Perseus, and Persephone, as well as the Homeric stories of The Trojan Horse and Odysseus and the Cyclops. All of these are, sadly, out of print. Hutton himself, who was also a painter and, like his father John, a glass engraver, died in 1994 at the age of 45. I've added his books to my "must buy if I see them at the used book sale" list. They are really lovely.

Where's Mommy? (Mary and the Mouse)

The very first book I reviewed on this blog (and I use "reviewed" loosely; perhaps better to say "mentioned") was Mary and the Mouse, the Mouse and Mary by Beverly Donofrio, illustrated by Barbara McClintock (Schwartz and Wade, 2007). So I was naturally curious about the companion book Where's Mommy?, which is out now, and am happy to report that it is just as charming as the original. It has the same parallel structure, too, picking up with Maria and Mouse Mouse at bedtime one summer evening, when they discover that their mothers (the original Mary and the Mouse) are missing. Separate searches lead them to the garden shed, and a surprise that readers of Mary and the Mouse will already suspect.

I wish I had larger images of McClintock's detailed illustrations, rendered in pen-and-ink, watercolor, and gouache, to share (see them at Schwartz and Wade's Where's Mommy? flickr set). The book takes place entirely in and around (and under) Maria's family's contemporary ranch house, all glass brick and stone--a perfect fit for the long horizontals of the double-page spreads. My favorite image is of the living room (it's in the flickr set)--besides the bookcase, which is ample, I especially like the painting on the wall: it's a reproduction of Goya's portrait of Manuel Osorio Manrique de Zuñiga, with three cats (at the Metropolitan Museum of Art). The mouse family living below gets a print of Hunca Munca from Beatrix Potter's The Tale of Two Bad Mice.

[Barbara McClintock is one of my favorite illustrators. Does anyone know whatever happened to Adele and Simon in China? It was supposed to come out Fall 2011.]

Wayland by Tony Mitton and John Lawrence

Out of the lands in the chill, far North come legends from long ago. This is the story of Wayland Smith, the strangest of all I know.

Those are the opening lines of Wayland: The Tale of the Smith from the Far North, retold by Tony Mitton and illustrated with vinyl engravings by master engraver John Lawrence (David Fickling Books, 2013). Wayland (according to the author's note, which I read using Amazon UK's Look inside! feature) was a legendary smith who took a swan-maiden for a wife. When she leaves him, he dedicates himself to his work, hoping to win her back. Instead, he is captured by a greedy king and imprisoned on a sunless island, where he must hide the treasures he makes in an intricate maze. Ultimately, Wayland makes himself a pair of wings and flies off in search of his wife--and in Mitton's retelling, at least, they are reunited.

The cover of Wayland, with its checkerboard pattern of red flames and white feathers, only hints at the boldness and beauty of Lawrence's expressive engravings. Some of them are available to view online at Illustration Cupboard, which held an exhibition of Lawrence's work on this and other books (including Philip Pullman's His Dark Materials and T.H. White's The Once and Future King). And some of those are available for purchase, although I would be happy enough to have only the book.

Caldecott Hopefuls: Mr. Tiger Goes Wild

Something about the cover of Mr. Tiger Goes Wild by Peter Brown (Little, Brown; 2013) reminded me of Henri Rousseau: maybe it was the top-hatted Mr. Tiger himself, or the oversized leaf shapes that make up the jungle surrounding him. Rousseau aside, Brown won a 2013 Caldecott Honor for Creepy Carrots (by Aaron Reynolds; Simon and Schuster, 2012) and seems like a really nice guy (I know this because he signed a poster for my daughter at BEA a couple of years ago), so I requested a review copy of Mr. Tiger Goes Wild--thank you, folks at Little, Brown!

Here's the story: Mr. Tiger is bored of being a prim and proper anthropomorphized animal. He wants to be...wild (he's a tiger, after all). It's the perfect premise for a picture book, and Brown delivers, depicting Mr. Tiger's transformation in two gorgeous, graphic (ahem) spreads. I don't want to give away the page turns--they make the book as far as I'm concerned--but someone in the publicity department at Little, Brown might want to mock up a poster. 

Odds and endpapers: The illustrations for Mr. Tiger Goes Wild were "made with India ink, watercolor, gouache, and pencil on paper, then digitally composited and colored" (from About This Book); they remind me a little of Jon Klassen's work in the 2013 Caldecott Medal winner This is Not My Hat (Candlewick, 2012), actually. Bonus points for the illustrated endpapers and textured tiger-striped cover underneath the dust jacket, though. And for Mr. Tiger--roar! Available tomorrow.

The Vine Basket by Josanne La Valley

Josanne La Valley's debut novel The Vine Basket (Clarion, 2013) is Merighul's story, and it's not an easy one: not for a 14-year-old girl who has to leave school to help on the family farm after her brother disappears, leaving her father embittered, her mother withdrawn, and herself in danger of being to sent away to work in a factory; and not as a Uyghur in East Turkestan, a land--and increasingly, a culture--dominated by the Han Chinese. Merighul has reason to hope when an American woman buys her vine basket for 100 yuan (just 16 American dollars, but more than Merighul's family might make at the market in a month) and says she'll come back in three weeks for more--but those three weeks bring more hardship, and Merighul may not have even one new basket to bring to market on the fateful day.

Merighul's story is almost unbearably hard (her little sister Lali's situation is heartbreaking, too). Thankfully, Merighul has the support of her grandfather Chong Ata, an artisan himself, and a true friend, Pati; and even though her future is not at all certain at the end of the book, it is at least more hopeful. 

The Vine Basket reminded me in many ways--particularly in Merighul's dedication to her craft and descriptions of the basketweaving process--of A Single Shard by Linda Sue Park (also Clarion, 2001), although that book is about 12th century Korean pottery (Park reviewed The Vine Basket for the New York Times, 5/10/2013). A Single Shard is one of my favorite Newbery Medal winners, which should say something about how I feel about The Vine Basket. Required--and rewarding--reading.

[Black Garden (Tandem), 2009 from Living Shrines of Uyghur China: Photographs by Lisa Ross (The Monacelli Press, 2013). Merighul ties a thin strip of cloth like these to a bamboo culm with a prayer for skill and courage.]

North of Nowhere by Liz Kessler

Liz Kessler's series books starring Emily Windsnap and Philippa Fisher are tween girl favorites (we like Emily Windsnap, the half-mermaid, best), but her standalone books are equally appealling: this one, North of Nowhere (Candlewick, 2013), is part mystery, part magic--but to say more about what sort of magic it might be would give some of it away, so I'll stick to what Mia knows: she is stuck in a sleepy seaside village on the coast of Cornwall (no cell phones, no Internet) over spring break because her grandfather has gone missing, and she and her mother have to help Gran run the pub.

If Mia sounds a tiny bit self-absorbed, it's because she is--she's in eighth grade, after all--and Kessler's writing, in Mia's voice, reflects that. But she's also genuinely concerned about her grandfather, and eager to make friends: with a girl she gets to know by way of letters exchanged via an old diary (I loved this part), and a boy, Peter, who's determined to help the two girls meet. She's also willing to walk the dog (Flake, a border collie--I liked him, too).

The girl in the diary (Mia knows her only as Dee) lives on the island of Luffsands, off the coast of Cornwall, which complicates matters when stormy weather makes it impossible for her to get to the mainland village of Porthaven, where Mia is waiting for her. And then Peter disappears, and Mia suspects he's gone to Luffsands to find Dee.

At risk of revealing too much, the island of Luffsands is based on the true story of Hallsands, a British village that collapsed into the sea almost a hundred years ago--but even with that information, it's almost impossible to know where the story is going until it's gotten there. And even then, you might have trouble believing it! Don't say Mia didn't warn you.

[This print is of South Hall Sands circa 1900, by Gerry Miles (2007). It's just how I imagined the village of Porthaven might look, too.]

Kibuishi's Harry Potter Covers

What do you think of the new Harry Potter covers by Kazu Kibuishi, writer and artist of the graphic novel series AMULET? Now that all of the cover images have been released (they will be on trade paperbacks in September), it's easier to see what they have in common, and how they compare to the iconic American covers by Mary GrandPre. Kibuishi's covers--my favorite is still the first, for Sorceror's Stone, but I also like The Prisoner of Azkaban--tend to look more like full shots rather close-ups, and they're all outside. The back covers are indoors and, appropriately enough, of Harry's back--as he's looking into the Mirror of Erised, for example, or a cabinet full of boggarts. I like the image of Hogwarts made by the spines of all seven books in the box set, too: Kibuishi designed the whole package.

It's my understanding that the new editions will retain GrandPre's chapter art (also known as "decorations"), which is good news for people like me who love black-and-white illustrations in children's books and wish more of the newer ones had them.

How to Draw a Bear

I love the Guardian's How to draw... series by children's book illustrators. Today it's Jon Klassen with "How to draw...a bear thinking about something." The finished bear will look familiar if you've seen Klassen's I Want My Hat Back (Candlewick, 2011); I was under the impression that the bear in that book was rendered digitally, but you can draw (or rather paint) your own with brown ink or watercolor. After the success of the Oliver Jeffers-inspired moose, I think we will try to paint some Klassen bears this weekend. What do bears think about?

Tulip Mania, the Sequel: Snowdrops

I read this article in yesterday's Washington Post ("Letter from Ireland: Snowdrops are a prize in full bloom," by Adrian Higgins, 2/20/2013), about the mania for snowdrop bulbs in Ireland, with great interest, partly because who doesn't love snowdrops in February? But mostly because I'm also interested in reading about the seventeeth-century Dutch mania for tulips. Unfortunately, there don't seem to be many middle grade or YA books set during the Dutch Golden Age: just The House of Windjammer by V.A. Richardson (Bloomsbury, 2003) and its sequels, The Moneylender's Daughter and The Street of Knives, which seem to involve a lot of seafaring and anyway are out of print. Maybe there are more?

Picture book readers, though, might like Hana in the Time of the Tulips by Deborah Noyes, illustrated by Bagram Ibatoulline (Candlewick, 2004). Ibatoulline's illustrations echo the style of the Dutch masters, particularly Rembrandt, who appears as a character in this book. And Noyes's work is always interesting, whether she's writing about tulips or wolf girls or Chinese princesses. And those are just the picture books!

The Mystery of the Fool and the Vanisher

It's as difficult to pin down The Mystery of the Fool and the Vanisher by David and Ruth Ellwand (Candlewick, 2008) as one imagines it would be to photograph a fairy (Cottingley fairies aside). Which is precisely what nineteenth-century photographer Isaac Wilde attempted to do while on an archaeological dig of a Neolithic flint mine somewhere in the English Downs. Wilde's account, transcribed from wax phonograph sound recordings, is documented here alongside photographs of the contents of a wooden box discovered by David Ellwand while walking on the Downs (in the footsteps, incidentally, of none other than Sir Arthur Conan Doyle); and framed by Ellwand's personal journal with additional notes from his photographic notebook.

All of this fails to capture the creepy gorgeousness of The Mystery of the Fool and the Vanisher, recommended to me by Zoe of Playing by the Book (via Myra of Gathering Books; thanks to you both!) because of my interest in manipulated photography and photographic processes--many of which (bromide, gold-toned albumen, gelatin silver, etc.) are represented in this book. According to the copyright page, however, the photographs were made "with necromancy and magic." And I'm inclined to believe it.

[All the more so because the book's website has disappeared. How long ago was 2008 in Internet years? You'll just have to take my word for it, or track down a copy for yourself (it's currently available for a bargain price on Amazon). Apart from the photographs, the artifacts are fascinating: my favorite are the spectacles with the lenses removed and replaced with holed flint stones. Or the mussel shell suit of armor.]

Caldecott Hopefuls: This Moose Belongs to Me

My Caldecott Hopefuls are picture books I like a lot, for various and idiosyncratic reasons, and not necessarily ones I think will win the award (although one can hope). Here's what I love about This Moose Belongs to Me by Oliver Jeffers (Philomel, 2012): the contrast between the grandeur and solemnity of the landscape backgrounds (many of them reprinted from paintings by 20th century American artist Alexander Dzigurski) and, well, Wilfred and his moose (as seen in the image above, which wraps around the covers of the book). Now that I think of it, this style of illustration--Jeffers's artistic borrowing--is especially appropriate to a story about ownership (see Caldecott criteria 1.c). Does this moose belong to me?

According to the copyright page, "the art for this book was made from a mishmash of oil painting onto old linotype and painted landscapes, and a bit of technical wizardry thrown into the mix here and there." In case you want to try this at home (yes, you do), Oliver Jeffers has helpfully made a video called How to Draw a Moose. We didn't have any landscape paintings lying around, so we drew our moose (meese? mice?) onto pages ripped from old National Geographics instead. Kind of like this:

Except at Macchu Picchu.

Mini Mock Caldecott

I'm thinking about holding a Mini Mock Caldecott for some of my daughter's third-grade friends at my house later this month. I know Milly would be interested (for my sake, if nothing else), but I'm not sure about anyone else. Maybe it will have to be a Micro-Mini Mock Caldecott?

If I do follow through on this (and writing about it here should help), I'll have to limit the number of books we look at together to about five. I'd like to have time for reading, discussion (of the Caldecott criteria and voting process as well as of the books themselves), and hands-on exploration of some artistic media. And, of course, voting! Here are the books I'm considering:

Green by Laura Vaccaro Seeger (Roaring Brook).

Homer by Elisha Cooper (Greenwillow).

Oh No! by Candace Fleming; illustrated by Eric Rohmann (Shwartz and Wade).

Step Gently Out by Helen Frost and Rick Lieder (Candlewick).

Unspoken by Henry Cole (Scholastic).

I chose these based in part on the variety of media: acrylic and oil pastel, watercolor, relief printing, photography, and pencil, respectively. But looking at my list, I wonder if it doesn't need a funny book, too--maybe Goldilocks and the Three Dinosaurs as retold by Mo Willems (Balzer + Bray)?

It would be lovely if at least one of the books we look at were to be recognized by the actual Caldecott committee: being shut out entirely is one of the risks of limiting the list to only 5, although it could happen with a list of 20. Maybe we should meet again after the winner is announced on January 28--assuming we meet in the first place!

Princess Academy of Art

Anticipating the August release of Princess Academy: Palace of Stone by Shannon Hale (Bloomsbury, 2012), I recently read the first Princess Academy, a 2006 Newbery Honor book. I wonder why I hadn't read it before, because it's just the sort of book I like, and probably would have loved as a ten-year-old girl: it has a classic feel and an ordinary-girl heroine in Miri Larendaughter, it's set in a village on a snowy mountaintop--beautifully evoked throughout the book as well as on the original cover, shown here--and there's a boarding school. Where you have to study to be a princess. After learning to read (no one in Mount Eskel knew how before the princess academy), the girls study Danlander History, Commerce, Geography, and Kings and Queens. And then there are the "princess-forming" subjects: Diplomacy (which proves useful on more than occasion), Conversation, and Poise. I want to go to princess academy!

I also want to add Princess Academy to the Middle Grade Gallery (where I think about how paintings work in fiction), even though Art isn't one of the subjects the girls have to study. But one winter morning, their tutor Olana shows the girls a painting; like the silver princess dress they've already seen, it's meant to make them work harder at their studies, to remind them of their goal:

Olana removed the cloth and held up a colorful painting much more detailed than the chapel's carved doors. It illustrated a house with a carved wooden door, six glass windows facing front, and a garden of tall trees and bushes bursting with red and yellow flowers.
"This house stands in Asland, the capital, not a long carriage ride from the palace...It will be given to the family of the girl chosen as princess." [87]

And the painting does its job: Miri, for one, spends hours imagining her family inside the house and garden, so different from their mountain home.

At the end of the book, Olana reveals the truth about the painting, and gives it to Miri. Spoiler alert (after seven years, I don't think I'm spoiling anything, but just in case): the house never existed. And Miri doesn't marry the prince (although she is academy princess). It's not until Palace of Stone that she goes to the capital at all. I wonder if she will remember the painting when she gets there?

The Fantastic Jungles of Henri Rousseau

Henri Rousseau was a toll collector for the city of Paris when, at the age of 40, he decided to become an artist--a famous artist. Michelle Markel's picture book biography The Fantastic Jungles of Henri Rousseau (illustrated by Amanda Hall; Eerdmans, 2012) begins with that surprising decision. Her precise and poignant text balances Rousseau's love of nature and growing confidence in his own work (he was self-taught) with his lifelong desire for critical recognition.

Poor Henri! No sooner does he paint something we might consider a masterpiece(The Sleeping Gypsy, The Hungry Lion Throws Itself on the Antelope, and The Dream are referenced in the text or in Hall's illustrations) than the experts say mean things about it: "They say it looks like he closed his eyes and painted with his feet."

But Rousseau keeps painting. Eventually, near the end of his life, younger, more well-known artists befriend him. One of them, Pablo Picasso, even throws a banquet in his honor (that's Picasso with Fernande Olivier on the right; a key at the back of the book identifies the other historical figures in the illustration below).

At last, and over one hundred years later, Rousseau's paintings hang in museums around the world. [There are three on view at the National Gallery; I'm excited to see them after having read the book.]

Amanda Hall's illustrations, rendered in watercolor and acrylics, really capture the feel of Rousseau's work, from the lush foliage and flowers to the faces of people and animals. In an illustrator's note (there's also an author's note, but sadly no sources), Hall writes that she "decided to break the rules of scale and perspective to reflect [Rousseau's] unusual way of seeing the world. For some of the illustrations, I drew directly on his actual paintings, altering them playfully to help tell the story." My favorite example is this image of a tiger literally crawling out of the canvas as Henri paints:

The understated text reads, "Sometimes Henri is so startled by what he paints that he has to open the window to let in some air."

Aside: Kids might be interested to know that the jungle in the computer-animated movie Madagascar was inspired by Rousseau's work. My own kids were also interested to know that I had a cheap print of Sleeping Gypsy in my college dorm room.

It's still my favorite Rousseau.

Six Degrees of Peggy Bacon's children's books

Peggy Bacon was an American artist and printmaker who also wrote and illustrated a lot of charming children's books--one of which, The Ghost of Opalina (Little, Brown, 1967), is reviewed today at Charlotte's Library. I was curious about Bacon and delighted to discover that she's the subject of an exhibition, Six Degrees of Peggy Bacon, now showing at the Smithsonian's Archives of American Art (I haven't seen it yet; the photograph is by Michael Barnes, from a Virtual tour of the exhibition on Peggy's Facebook page).

The exhibition focuses on Bacon's connections to people in the art world, but I wonder if we could do the same thing for children's books? Bacon herself illustrated books by everyone from Lloyd Alexander (My Five Tigers: The cats in my life; Thomas Y. Crowell, 1956) to Betsy Byars (Rama the Gypsy Cat; Viking, 1966--I still have my childhood copy of this one, fortunately). She seems to have been the go-to illustrator for cats in the 1950s and 60s, and a fascinating person besides. More Peggy Bacon, please!