Little Known Fact: Maurice Sendak wasn’t always a bearded old man with glasses living in a house adjacent to a New England woods. Indeed, he was once a young artist living in a sparsely furnished New York apartment studying the masters and making dummies out of trim scraps. True!
That’s from a 1966 Weston Woods video. You can watch the whole thing in its entirety here. It’s worth because it gives a unique view of Sendak who is usually remembered as the grumpy grandpa of picture books.
People often paint Sendak as a curmudgeon but tell me this, what curmudgeon accepts a handmade decoupaged magnetic memory board with this amount of grace?
To further prove my point, here’s a picture of Maurice Sendak goofin’ around on a pedal boat.
photo from the Francelia Butler Papers, University of Connecticut
I’ve been looking forward to reading THESE OLIVE TREES by Aya Ghanameh at least since this Twitter thread about the dearth of Palestinian books in children’s publishing (the post points to this article by Nora Lester Murad on the School Library Journal website). I’ve got the book in hand now and there’s a lot I like about it, particularly how the illustrations capture the texture of risograph printing, which, if you read my post on illustration styles through the decades, you know is one of my favorites.
Ghanameh’s zine: HOME. A REFLECTION
I’m impressed, also, that the book ends on something of a hopeful note. You have the feeling that these olive trees, uprooted, bulldozed, displaced and otherwise destroyed, remain resilient and will survive as seeds. Or maybe that’s just me looking for hope.
My mind keeps going back to this short film, YEARBOOK by Bernardo Britto.
In this short, the main character is tasked with recording the entirety of human history on a single hard drive before its extinction. When the hard drive begins to run out of memory, he must decide which people and events get cut. This is a pessimistic take, and to be honest, an uncomfortable one as I offer it from the safety of my North American privilege, but I keep wondering when an author is faced with the genocide of their people, what makes it into the scant 32 pages and some hundred words that make up a picture book?
Author Astrid Kamalyan, Artsakh Armenian, tells the story of her people’s rug washing tradition in BÁBO. It’s a lovely book and I don’t think there’s a wasted line but there’s one right in the middle of the book that captures my imagination. “The hot air in the garden smells like simmering rose jam.” It feels like there’s something important in that image.
BÁBO on my own, forgive me, unwashed rug
I’m not certain what I’m writing about here. I don’t know if I can read either of these books outside the context of genocide, and I don’t know if I even should try to. At the same time, I wish I could celebrate Palestinian and Armenian storytelling for their own sakes. I want to know if there are unicorns in Palestine and dragons in Armenia. I want to know if the poetry and humor of the authors’ writing matches the landscapes of their countries. (If that sounds selfish and indulgent, do know that what I’m really asking for is a world where this kind of selfish indulgence is allowed.)
Ultimately, if this is just about me and why I’m writing this barely-about-picture-books post, I feel a need to bear witness. YEARBOOK ends with the idea that on a cosmic scale all that really matters is the here and now. The here and now, presently, is terrible and I can hardly come to terms not only with the fact that I’m holding two books by two authors who are personally affected by current genocides but there are, in fact, other ongoing genocides happening in the world (Sudanese and Uyghur, to say nothing of indigenous tribes of the Amazon). Hope is hard right now, but I’m glad these books exist and I’m happy to support these authors and to carry some small part of their traditions so that their stories, like the olive seed, may yet survive.
ps: I know the names mentioned in YEARBOOK are heavily Western-centric. If you noticed that and are looking for a broader view of the history of our world, I recommend Bill Wurtz’s HISTORY OF THE ENTIRE WORLD, I GUESS.
Alright, I asked you yesterday which Edward inspired James Marshall. You had the choice of Edward Gorey, Edward Ardizzone, and Blake Edwards. The answer?
The gentleman on the right is none other than Edward Gorey. And, yes, Marshall considered him a master (alongside Maurice Sendak) of picture book illustration. You can see Gorey’s influence in Marshall’s earliest work. Here’s a page from PLINK, PLINK, PLINK (Baylor, Marshall, 1971).
You can see Marshall’s working hard to capture the atmosphere in Gorey’s work and in some places he’s successful (that tree, especially) but his crosshatching isn’t there. Lines in crosshatching are often oriented to follow the form of the object they’re decorating. Marshall accomplishes this in some places (the sloping bannister and the ball top) but in a rudimentary way. Crosshatching can also be used to denote the illustration’s light source but the shading is indistinct and, in some cases contradictory, (the ball at the top of the post is shaded on the left, the post itself is shaded on the right). Mostly, he’s using crosshatching to fill space.
Marshall would later find his strengths in shape, form, and composition to give his characters volume.
GEORGE AND MARTHA ROUND AND ROUND (1988)
But he’d never give up using at least a slight bit of crosshatching. Or in the following example, a lot. Here’s three attempts at filling in Old Mother Hubbard’s skirt, none of which were used as the final art (please excuse the dim quality of the first two pictures, I took these in a low-light archival setting, the last photo is darker and triggered my camera’s flash… if the original should suddenly dissolve, you know who to blame).
from the Thomas J. Dodd Library JAMES MARSHALL PAPERS, University of Connecticut
from the Thomas J. Dodd Library JAMES MARSHALL PAPERS, University of Connecticut
from the Thomas J. Dodd Library JAMES MARSHALL PAPERS, University of Connecticut
The final? It’s wonderful. That drapery is a hard effect to achieve in any technique. James Marshall absolutely nails it here. It’s incredibly intentional (as is my jeans folds being kept in the image).
OLD MOTHER HUBBARD AND HER WONDERFUL DOG (1991)
Oh, incidentally, today (the tenth) is James Marshall’s birthday. Maybe I’ll dip my pen in ink in honor of the occassion. As for the rest of the week… I’m playing it by ear, I’m not sure what else I’ll talk about. If you have any Marshall questions you’d like answered, let me know and I’ll do my best to answer them. See you tomorrow!
If you ever doubted a person could talk about paper donuts for three hours and forty minutes, I will point you to my last post and perhaps change your mind. If you ever doubted a person could talk about James Marshall for a five days, I will invite you to join me in a celebration of James Marshall’s life this week.
October 10th is James Marshall’s birthday, October 13th marks his passing. I usually acknowledge one or both of those days on Twitter where I’ll share some kind of Marshall-related resource. It doesn’t make sense to do that there any more, so I’m going to bring the party here instead.
It’s So Nice to Have a Wolf Around the House (Allard, Marshall, 1977)
Today, October 9th, is Indigenous Peoples’ day so it feels fitting to open with my own article about Marshall’s appropriation of Native American headdresses in his art. You’ll find that post here (don’t be frightened off by that title, it’s actually a quick read):
I was listening to Fuse Eight and Kate’s latest podcast and pulled out my copy of DRUMMER HOFF (a highly recommended practice, reading along if you can) and think I saw a picture book-movie connection. General Border looks like a caricature of Charles Laughton.
all in the cheekbones and lips
I can generally spot caricatures and self-inserts in picture books but the intentionality of this one is harder to figure out. None of the other military personnel look like anyone. I’m guessing Emberley was drawing from memory, and was maybe influenced by cartoons where the Charles Laughton character made several cameos.
I was burning my way through a pile of picture books trying to complete a challenge I set for myself at the start of the summer when I came across THE LISZTS by Kyo Maclear and Júlia Sardà. It reminded me that I meant to write about it on here.
When I watched Wes Anderson’s THE FRENCH DISPATCH last year one of my strongest impressions was that this was the most picture book-like movie I’d ever seen. That made me wonder what the most movie-like picture book is. THE LISZTS immediately to mind but now that I’m looking at it, I just think it’s the most Wes Anderson-like picture book. I mean…
It’s also got the LIFE AQUATIC soundtrack.
So, if THE LISZTS isn’t the most overall movie-like picture book, what is? I think some people might see a Jon Klassen connection in EVERYTHING, EVERYWHERE, ALL AT ONCE. It’s there, for sure, but maybe only in the rock scene.
And I’m not sure the inverse is true.
What do you think? What picture books feel cinematic to you?
The book I was most looking forward to this year was Monica “ARE YOU A CHEESEBURGER?” Arnaldo’s MR. S.
Every bit of praise this book is getting is well deserved, but I’m feeling like all the attention is going to the big picture concept. Yes, the book is surprising and mind bending in all the best ways, and, yes, this might be the most real kindergarten in all of picture books, but I’m not sure anyone has written about just how good these kid characters are.
Monica Arnaldo’s work has always had a ton of appeal but these kids are next level. The kids (mostly) share a common silhouette, but each is so wonderfully distinct and distinctly wonderful. Look at these goobers!
The frizzy haired kidThe skeptic
The kid who looks like he stepped out of the 50s
And my favorite:
The “welp” kid
Skin, costume, expression, personality… there’s a masterclass covering those topics in this book. There’s also probably an essay concerning the tradition of drawing groups of kids in this way. I’m thinking of Mary Blair and her concept work for Disney’s IT’S A SMALL WORLD. Maybe another day.
For now, other ways this books is outstanding:
Self-insertsActual kid art. I don’t care how good an artist you are, you just can’t fake this.
And then, of course, there’s the endpapers. But I’m not going to spoil that for you. Go out and buy this book. It’s incredible.
In one of those moments of synchronicity, Fuse Eight and Kate covered THE RAINBOW GOBLINS in their most recent podcast. What’s the coincidence? Well, I was wrestling with colors today (I’m preparing some large sheets of paper to use in collage illustrations, a technique you’d be most familiar with in Eric Carle’s work) and, like the goblins in the story, found myself elbow deep in acrylics and ethical dilemmas.
blarg
Acrylics are a plastic-based paint and their use releases microplastics into the environment. I don’t use acrylics often, but when I do, I try to keep my water waste to a minimum. I don’t use paint palettes, I use scraps of cardboard or old paper plates that I let dry and then throw away. I use pretty cheap brushes and don’t make an effort to rinse them perfectly clean but nevertheless, when I do run them under the tap, I see rivers of paint pigment, each a constellation of nano-scale plastic particles, swirling down the drain. It’s not a good feeling.
Some of the papers I painted today. The hammer is totally necessary to my process.
The papers, I like those. When the color and pattern come together in a pleasing arrangement, anyway. I could maybe scan them, and then use and reuse them in digital compositions. I don’t know, that doesn’t really excite me. If you’ve seen any one of my donut process videos, you’ll notice I draw on the fly with an x-acto knife. I’m not sure how I’d translate that onto an ipad.
I guess the best I can do is mitigate the amount of harmful byproducts working in this style creates. I’ve started using disposable brushes (which come as a bundle wrapped in plastic) so I can stop washing them all together. They’ll eventually wind up in a landfill which, granted, is only marginally better but it keeps me from worrying about microplastics in our water. The ones I put there, anyway.
You might be wondering what in the Rien Poortvliet I was talking about up in the post title about gnomes living underground. It’s this:
Now those guys knew how to make some eco-friendly paints. I’ve always wondered if Ul de Rico could have been inspired by this cartoon. I seriously doubt it. But then again, I think it was Italian film director Bernardo Bertolucci who said the “Baby Mine” sequence in Disney’s DUMBO was one of the greatest scenes in all of cinema, rivalling in beauty the works of Michelangelo (citation needed).
UPDATE: TikTok to the rescue. Turns out there’s another microplastic mitigation technique.
It’s an illustrated adaptation of Snyder’s ON TYRANNY: TWENTY LESSONS FROM THE TWENTIETH CENTURY and I’m thinking it should be required reading in middle school. We’re living in worrying times and in children’s books specifically, we’re in pretty dark territory. At a time when you think you’d want kids to have all the information they can have to navigate life, book banning has gone off the charts. The American Library Association reports that there were 1,269 attempted bans in 2022 (a 74% increase over 2021). I’ll admit I don’t know enough to know what happens behinds the scenes at publishing houses when the industry is faced with such a huge number of bans. In a time like this, do publishers shy away from controversial books? Do they capitulate (eg. Texas textbooks)? Or do they double down?
I would hope publishers would double down. Books are always a product of their time—the Environmental movement produced books like Bill Peet’s THE WUMP WORLD (1970) and Dr. Seuss’ THE LORAX (1971)—and in times like these I would love to see more books that straight up call out fascism. This made me wonder what picture books exist that could be called anti-fascist. I looked through my collection to see what I could find.
YERTLE THE TURTLE AND OTHER STORIES by Dr. Seuss (1958)
There’s Yertle, of course, the turtle tyrant who’s unseated by a burping commoner. Seuss did a number of anti-fascist editorial cartoons so his politics are pretty clear even without a Hitler mustache on Yertle (which, apparently, existed in an early draft).
THE BOMB AND THE GENERAL by Umberto Eco and Euginio Carmi (1989)
This book is probably more anti-war (or anti-bomb, if you consider the date) than anti-fascist, but the General in the story gets a comeuppance like Yertle. Maybe a 2/5 on the anti-fascist scale I just made up.
LOUIS I KING OF THE SHEEP by Olivier Tallec (2015)
Tallec’s LOUIS I KING OF THE SHEEP is definitely more anti-fascist. I mean:
It’s a mere gust of wind that brings about Louis’ downfall, not an uprising of oppressed sheep (or even just one burping sheep). The story shows that fascist rule can be fleeting, which is a comfort, but it also ends on a dark note. The crown lands on a wolf, who approaches the herd in the final spread. Lesson: don’t normalize fascist rule, even if it’s just a sheep with delusions of grandeur.
NOODLEPHANT (2019) and OKAPI TALE (2020) by Jacob Kramer and K-Fai Steele
These two! NOODLEPHANT is abolitionist, OKAPI tale is anti-capitalist, but both have elements of anti-fascism. The fascists, in this case, are kangaroos who consider themselves a special class of citizen in Rooville. At the end of NOODLEPHANT, the ruling kangaroos’ book of laws is turned into a tray of lasagna which is shared with all the citizens of the town. The kangaroos are are welcomed in good faith into the animals’ new utopia and they seem content enough (it’s a really good lasagna*). But the happy ending is short lived. OKAPI TALE opens with the kangaroos missing their privilege and collaborating with an okapi(talist) to reestablish their rule.
LOUIS I KING OF THE SHEEP tells us fascism is fleeting, NOODLEPHANT and OKAPI TALE tell us it’s freedom that’s fleeting.
*side note: I read NOODLEPHANT to several second grade classrooms a few years back and WITHOUT FAIL a couple kids would say “Mr. Jerrold, I’m hungry” after the description of Noodlephant’s special lasagna. The book had the same effect on me. Every. Damn. Time. Speaking of food:
ALICE’S RESTAURANT by Arlo Guthrie and Marvin Glass (1966)
This is definitely one of the more anti-fascist books I have in my collection. Granted, it isn’t really a kid’s picture book (just look at that cover), but except for some explicit language, it works like one.
What makes ALICE’S RESTAURANT so anti-fascist? Well, it describes the dangers of living in a police state, under the expectations and demands of an arbitrarily violent government.
The bureaucracy in the story is dehumanizing and is so familiar that it barely feels like satire. Thankfully, ALICE’S RESTAURANT does prescribe a salvation from fascism: get friends, get naked and dance your way out of it.
And finally, the last book:
KEEDLE, THE GREAT by Deirdre and William Conselman, Jr and Fred L. Fox adapted by Jack Zipes (2020)
KEEDLE, THE GREAT is a recent adaptation of a book written about 80 years ago. From the book’s notes:
In 1940, two young people decided to publish a strange book with the title Keedle to give Americans hope that the world can overcome dictatorships. To them, Keedle represented more than Hitler. Indeed, he represented all the dictators in the world then and now. This book is a reminder that we have always ridiculed authoritarian regimes. When we keep the power to laugh in their faces, the bullies will shrink away as we retain our integrity and humanity.
In the story, a little sociopath named Keedle rises to greater and greater power until the world decides to laugh at him. At which point:
He begins to grow smaller:
Until he can be squished like a flea:
The message in Keedle: you have to take the threat of fascism seriously, but what you don’t have to do is treat a fascist with any kind of respect. Pow!
OTHER BOOKS
I suppose you could make the argument that any picture book with a subversive protagonist is antifascist and that kids, already tuned into an unjust world, will catch on. Maybe. But, personally, feeling more and more that kids are inheriting a much worse world than the one I grew up in, I’m kind of done with subtlety. I was watching HISTORY OF THE WORLD: PART II and Mel Brooks gets it right. In a skit about Hitler, the writers go to great lengths to remind you what a disgusting pile of shit Hitler was. It’s a lot harder to say “disgusting pile of shit” in a picture book, but maybe there’s a way to say book banners, climate deniers, transphobes and all those other bad actors who are hell bent on making our world worse with every passing day are, like fascists, extremely poopy.
I’ll hold on to the hope that publishers are presently making these antifascist books and look forward to them coming out in the near future. You know, before all libraries and public schools lose all their books and are shuttered permanently.
a group of children’s book authors and illustrators heading to the library
