Just found out that Even Monsters Need Haircuts has been nominated for the Indiana Young Hoosier Book Award state list. Thanks, Indiana!
Category Archives: Childrens Books
Even Monsters are Brazilian
Here’s something cool that arrived in my inbox this week: the layout for the new Brazilian edition of Even Monsters Need Haircuts, which is just about to go to press. (Click to see the full image.) I know our world keeps getting smaller, but this sort of thing never fails to blow me away.
Hey Brazilian elementary schools – anyone interested in an author visit?
SLMS 2010
This past weekend Larry and I spoke at the NY State SLMS Conference for school library media specialists. We ate a delicious lunch, then spoke for a little while about writing Benjamin Franklinstein Lives! and screened our new video.
Wow, what nice people those librarians are. Turns out I even had some food on my jacket and no one said a thing.
Also, we’ve launched a new website for the book. If you get a chance, check it out…
Tedd Arnold at the Arnot Art Museum
Last week, while on the road, I had the chance to drop by and visit my friends Tedd and Carol Arnold. Tedd, of course, is the author of about a zillion books including the Green Wilma and award-winning Fly Guy series.
Tedd has a new exhibit of his work at the Arnot Art Museum in Elmira, NY, and he graciously gave me a sneak peak of the show last week. It’s phenomenal. If you find yourself anywhere in the neighborhood of New York’s Southern Tier in the next month or so, do yourself a favor and check it out. It’s a master class in illustration.
(As a bonus, the Arnot is also running a great show on fairy tale illustration upstairs. Two for one!)
Ronald Searle
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…
Scholastic Book Club Covers
As a kid growing up in the 70’s, the Scholastic Book Club had a lot to do with helping build my enthusiasm for reading. (Was there anything better than the day the books arrived?) This Flickr group is a trip down memory lane for those of us who grew up during that time period. I remember quite a few of these, and there are many more that I want to find and read right now. I’m dying to know, for example, the mystery behind The Horse Without a Head.
As an illustrator, I also love what the artists of the day were able to accomplish given the limits of printing technology. So many of these images are just one or two-color jobs, but the small palette only seems to add to the appeal of the book. It’s a master class in how to do more with less.
Saul Bass and Paul Rand
If you’re a student of design, you know these names well. What you may not know is that these two titans of graphic design history also dabbled in picture books, and there are a couple of interesting examples online.
Brian Dettmer’s Book Autopsies
Brian Dettmer does terrible things to old books. He cuts off the covers, slices up the pages, and performs all sorts of mutilations, all in the name of art. The results are magnificent, like some sort of literary version of the Visible Man.
Where the Wild Things Came From
Slate Magazine has a nice online slideshow on the history of children’s books taken from Timothy G. Young’s new book, Drawn to Enchant. Once you get past the ad, there’s some nice trivia here, including a sketch from Maurice Sendak’s never-published version of The Hobbit.
3-D Pulp Covers
(Warning to librarians: the following link contains graphic images of book mutilation.)
Thomas Allen cuts up books. Specifically, he cuts up the covers of old pulp novels, folds them back, and stages dioramas that bring a whole new life to the illustrations. These are a little hard to explain, but make perfect sense once you see his photos. Each one is a story unto itself.
Paperback Swap
My friend and Auburn, NY librarian Anne Mlod recommended Paperback Swap to me. She loves it. The idea is simple: you post some of your books on the site, then search through the catalog for some that you want. Your only cost is basically the postage for mailing it out. Every book owner is responsible for mailing their books to whomever requests them, and the site even creates a wrapper you can print, complete with the address and postage pre-calculated.