Drawn! has a nice write-up about Ronald Searle turning 90. Searle has always been one of my favorite illustrators ever since I saw his work in a collection of Tom Lehrer songs years ago. Searle has a way with his line that’s truly magnificent, and it’s heartening to see he’s still going strong.

Searle is among a proud tradition of illustrators who continued to work well into their tenth decade including Al Hirschfeld (99) and William Steig (95). These guys are my heroes.

Be sure to check out the video…

http://drawn.ca…

Working on the Benjamin Franklinstein books with Larry over the past year or so, inventors have been on my mind a lot. That’s why it was so interesting to come across these samples of letterhead from two of history’s greatest, Thomas Edison and Nikola Tesla. The two were not great friends, and it’s interesting to see how their personalities came across in the way they chose to correspond with the public. (I know which one I’d rather receive a letter from.)

Thomas Edison’s letterhead

Nikola Tesla’s letterhead

A deckle edge is when the pages of a book are cut in a ragged way so that they seem to be trimmed by hand. Turns out the tradition of creating those edges is pretty interesting:

The deckle edge dates back to a time when you used to need a knife to read a book. Those rough edges simulate the look of pages that have been sliced open by the reader. The printing happened on large sheets of paper which were then folded into rectangles the size of the finished pages and bound. The reader then sliced open the folds.

There’s a great article on this tradition at:

www.themillions.com

Yesterday I visited Malta Avenue Elementary and caught up with my longtime friend, librarian Colleen Leclaire. We did a full day, then an evening reading program that drew over two hundred people – a great turnout for a Friday night. Kudos to the Malta Avenue parents and everyone who worked so hard to make it all happen.

Below are a just a few of the pirate designs for Backbeard’s crew made by the kids at Malta Avenue…

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I visited Division Street Elementary School in Saratoga yesterday, where the kids had done some really funny pictures of what Backbeard’s costume might have looked like had he been shopping for clothes in other parts of the world. Here are just a few of my favorites:

Hawaii...

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