Elsa Mora and the Fables of la Fontaine

Artist and blogger Elsa Mora is chronicling her creative process as she works on a series of eight cut paper illustrations for a French edition of the Fables of La Fontaine (the final book will be a pop-up with paper engineering by Julia Frolich). The project's timeline is 6-8 weeks, which seems impossibly short given the intricate nature of her work (sometimes it seems to take me 6-8 weeks to write a single post), but the first illustration, for The Fox and the Crow, is already on its way to France: that's a detail of its frame, a theater curtain, above.

Elsa's posts on the book in progress are fascinating reading if you're at all interested in how books are made, no matter if you're an artist, a writer, or a reader. They cover everything from materials and techniques to making artistic decisions such as whether the animal characters should be clothed or not. So much thought goes into every decision. In this case, she ultimately decided to dress the animals in her illustrations: they're more fun to make as well as to look at that way. I agree!

For a book illustrated as if each story or scene is happening on stage, it's also fun to get a literally behind-the-scenes look. I love the way Elsa created a wife for Fox, even though she doesn't appear in the finished illustration below.

Next up: The Town Mouse and the Country Mouse. Wait til you see the Town Mouse's outfit!

[If you're unfamiliar with the fables of La Fontaine, check out The Hare and The Tortoise and Other Fables of La Fontaine, illustrated by another of my favorite artists, Giselle Potter (verse translation by Ranjit Bolt; Barefoot Books, 2006. I can't remember, but judging from the cover it looks as if the animals in this one appear in their natural state). I've posted my favorite editions of Aesop here as well.

And finally, do you like your picture book animals dressed or do you think Animals Should Definitely Not Wear Clothing?]

Angela Barrett and The Hidden House

Children's illustrator Angela Barrett was featured in the Guardian's series A Life in Pictures last week (April 14, 2010).  This gorgeous image, the first in the slideshow, is from The Hidden House by Martin Waddell (1990), now out of print. I picked up a copy at a library sale a couple of years ago and promptly fell in love with Barrett's mysterious and beautiful work. The story itself is about the passage of time; both poignant and a little strange, I love it, too.

Bruno the lonely doll-maker makes three dolls to keep him company in his house in the woods before he dies and leaves them to rot away. Years later the house is brought back to life by a new family. The glorious splash of yellow in this double-page spread breaks away from the sombre greens and greys of the early part of the story.

Not to mention the blue jug of flowers, which looks like something by de Heem; and in fact several of the images in this book have the carefully composed quality of a Dutch still life. We like to count the cats here (there are five--no, six of them, one of which has tangled a spool of thread around the legs of a chair) and imagine climbing the curving blue staircase behind the yellow door.

[I've missed books together this spring.  I hope you have, too!  In any case, it's good to be back.]

Sugar and Ice

Thank you to Kate Messner for sending me a signed (in metallic blue ink, no less!) copy of her latest middle grade novel, Sugar and Ice (Walker & Company, 2010). Kate's first novel, The Brilliant Fall of Gianna Z. (2009) won the E.B. White Read Aloud Award for Older Readers, and Sugar and Ice shares that book's warm narrative voice and its variety of interwoven topics and themes.  Gianna Z. and Claire Boucher are also similarly realistic, well-rounded heroines. But when Claire accepts a scholarship to train with elite figure skaters in Lake Placid, her life--and her skating--tilt a bit off balance.

I've heard this book described as "Mean Girls on ice," and Claire definitely encounters some of those. There's so much more to Sugar and Ice than mean girls, though: Claire has to deal with her own fears and anxieties about skating competitively (or not), as well as her relationships with Russian coach Andrei Groshev and the other skaters, both friends and rivals, training with her at Lake Placid.  Not to mention everything that's going on--with or without her--back home in Mojimuk Falls.

I especially love the way Sugar and Ice encompasses more than the world of competitive figure skating (which is fascinating in itself, especially if figure skating is your favorite winter Olympic sport). Claire's family's maple farm, her friend Natalie's beekeeping hobby, a school project about Fibonacci numbers all coexist with skating in Claire's life.  Pair Sugar and Ice with a nonfiction book about any one of those topics for a rich (and sweet) reading experience. Thanks, Kate!

Yoko's Show-and-Tell

Yoko, an adorable Japanese-American kitten, is starring in her fourth picture book by Rosemary Wells, Yoko's Show-and-Tell (Hyperion, 2011).  In this one, Yoko's grandparents in Japan send her an antique doll for Girls' Day.  Yoko's mother says ("in her Big No voice") that Yoko may not take Miki to school for show-and-tell, but Yoko can't resist: "Everyone in my class will love you!" she said to Miki. "I will bring you right home, and Mama will never know!"

Well.  Miki ends up significantly worse for the wear after the Franks toss her around the school bus--she doesn't even make it to show-and-tell--and Yoko has to confess to her mother ("Do you still love me?"). They rush Miki to Dr. Kiroshura's Doll Hospital, and she's good as new by the time Obaasan and Ojiisan arrive for their springtime visit from Japan: "Obaasan admired Miki's new kimono. "She is so beautiful. And not one scratch after all these years!"

Yoko's Show-and-Tell is a quiet and lovely little book, just 9" square. It's economically told and always attuned to Yoko's feelings, which will be painfully familiar to anyone who has ever done something against her (or her mother's) better judgment.  I do think it could have ended with Obaasan's comment above; we don't really need to see the consequences for the Franks, only for Yoko.

Yoko herself is an exceptionally expressive kitten. Wells's illustrations combine ink-and-watercolor with patterned paper collage in small square panels, one to a page; the endpapers, featuring Miki in a variety of kimonos, are especially cheerful and cute. Look for this one if you, like me, love Yoko's Paper Cranes (2001) and traditional Japanese art and culture. Just in time for Girls' Day on March 3!