Charity James's blog

Books as Art, pt 2

Submitted by Charity James on Thu, 10/08/2009 - 8:10pm

More watercolors. Another of my favorite artists is Marc Simont.

He won the Caldecott medal in 1957 for A Tree is Nice. All the pictures in this book are not in color. It was too expensive back then to do every picture in color, so publishers just printed every other spread in color when they made picture books.

Books as art, part 1

Submitted by Charity James on Sat, 10/03/2009 - 3:54pm

So. Today's entry is about one of my favorite artists: Hiroe Nakata. She illustrates with watercolors. Sometimes she also uses gouache (which is basically a thicker watercolor) or ink.

Most of the characters she paints are humans, but she's done three duck books.

duck skates Are those ducks cute, or what?

Picture Books for Big Kids, part 2

Submitted by Charity James on Thu, 09/24/2009 - 7:10pm

I totally forgot to list two of my absolute favorite picture books (for big kids. Some of my favorite picture books *are* for little kids). Me and My Cat? is not very long, but its humor just won't be fully appreciated by little people.

Picture Books are for Big Kids, too

Submitted by Charity James on Mon, 09/14/2009 - 12:06pm

Once upon a time, a little girl, about 8 years old was walking down the picture book aisle, when her mother said, “get out of those baby books.” ACK! How's a kid supposed to learn to love reading if she can't read what she wants.
Picture books are not *baby* books. Picture books are basically stories with pictures. Some picture books are for babies. Some picture books are for preschoolers.  There are even lots of picture books which are for kids in elementary school, even 4th or 5th grade--even junior high--even high school!
Think of it this way--are ice cream cones *just* for little kids? No, of course not. But will little kids appreciate rum raisin ice cream, or coffee ice cream? No, those flavors are for bigger people. It is just the same with picture books--some are for little people and some are for big people.

Syndicate content