I have been known to take a canvas bag to the library and load it up with Caldecott winners. One of the things I miss most about having little grandkids around, is I have no one to read to. JRock is sixteen now and he just is not interested in King Bidgood anymore. I can have a blast making a total fool of myself reading King Bidgood's in the Bathtub. I will read to any child – at the Doctor’s office, at the library, on the bus. It makes no mind to me, as long as it is a good book.
Not all books are equal. Daughter-of-eleven loves books but has no distinction between them. She thinks that Barbie’s Picnic deserves shelf space with Matthew’s Dragon and anything by Audrey and Don Woods. I, however, refuse to read Barbie’s Picnic a second time.
One of my all time favorite children’s books is The Orphan Boy, A Maasai Story by Tololwa M. Mollel and illustrated by Paul Morin. Amazon.com: The Orphan Boy: Tololwa M. Mollel, Paul Morin: Books I am approaching this as a visual artist and this book has some of the most outstanding illustrations I have seen. It was published by Clarion Books, New York.
The back blurb reads: “At dawn the planet Venus appears in the east as the morning star. At night-fall it is the evening star in the west. The Maasaid call this star Kileken, the orphan boy. This traditional story from Africa explains the reason Kileken appears in the sky both morning and night.”
Beside the story, which is well worth reading, the illustrations are painted and the artist's canvas is visible to add texture to the pictures. This book is so richly textured that you can feel the heat of the African sun and the cool of the moonlit night. The canvas itself adds life to the morning sunrise. The artist has then added, perhaps using gesso with sticks or string or other additions, another dimension. I have scaned a few of the illustrations in, as Amazon does not do them justice.
This is but one half of the picture. I wish my scanner was larger to show it all. Note the texture in the foreground. The cattle go off into the sunset in the upper right corner.
I know the books binding here is in the way but the fabric and then the yellow highlighting to the right adds so much dimension, I wanted to show it.
This is also only part of a picture but I wanted you to see the way the artist has used texture in these illustrations.
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