I have been revisiting my dissertation (a very painful experience I may add as I hate reading my own work) to reacquaint myself with picturebook theory. Part of it included researching , via the excellent Children Reading Pictures: Interpreting Visual Texts by Evelyn Arizpe and Morag Styles, and applying art theory by art historian Kenneth …
Thames & Hudson have long been at the forefront of publishing books on the arts and design, but they are also one of the few publishers who continue to publish books about illustration as an Art form. In the last few months they have released two volumes which will undoubtedly delight and fascinate picturebook enthusiasts. …
Today, Miffy celebrates her 65th birthday. Dick Bruna, his wife and their young son had been at seaside during a holiday when they witnessed a little rabbit (konijntje in Dutch) playing in the sand dunes. Later on, the little rabbit made its way into the bedtime story Bruna told his son. That day was 21st …
Joanna Carey (Thames & Hudson) Part of The Illustrators series (whose consultant is Sir Quentin Blake), this is a wonderful celebration of one of Britain’s most beloved and cherished picturebook makers, Judith Kerr. In this tome, readers are given access to a extensive selection of Kerr’s art, including very early drawings saved by her mother as they …
Katherine Rundell (Bloomsbury) Fellow children’s literature appreciators have all experienced the following, when stepping out of their echo chambers: the slight bewilderment of others when they learn that you read children’s literature. That bewildered expression often turns to aghast when you confess that you have studied it, or worse, that you read /study picturebooks. Yes, yes, those people …
Leonard S. Marcus (Walker Books) When a picturebook maker’s work has been omnipresentthroughout your childhood and or the childhood of your children, you feel like you know them. They are just part of your everyday life, part of the family. This is how so many of us feel about Helen Oxenbury. Delving into this stunning …
Martin Salisbury (Thames and Hudson) Okay, okay, so this is not *technically* a book about children’s books, though it includes many. BUT anyone interested in children’s literature, and particularly in children’s book illustration, should be interested in everything that Martin Salisbury writes, and I urge you to seek out his other books if you have …
Roderick Cave & Sara Ayad (British Library) A splendid hardback volume, this new title from the British Library may not be what one expects at first. This is not a “best 100 children’s books ever” kind of book; rather, as Cave and Ayad mention in their introduction, as well as many favourites the book includes tomes that …
Philip Ardagh with contributions from Frank Cottrell-Boyce research by Amanda Li (Macmillan Children’s Books) It seemed apt that, to launch a new feature on books focusing on the appreciation of children’s literature, I would choose a book which focuses on the series of books that probably most fascinates and generates nostalgia : the Moomins. I don’t …
If you are interested in learning about children’s book illustration, or if you are simply an admirer of children’s book illustration, there is one person’s books that you should most definitely seek out, and that is Martin Salisbury’s. Martin Salisbury is Professor of Illustration at Anglia Rushkin University. There he leads the MA in …
