41/365 The Flying Hockey Stick by Jolly Roger Bradfield.

May I say,

I LOVE JOLLY ROGER BRADFIELD.  My mum loved his books when she was little, and I did too.  Heck, we still love them.  The colors! The stories!  They're wonderful.  This one especially.  What kid has never dreamed of flying?

CONCLUSION:  I need to be brave with color if I become an illustrator.  Books like this are just a feast for the eyes.

39/365 The Paper Princess by Elisa Kleven

Gee, I haven't read this in years.  Yes, it is a picture book.  It is also wonderful.  One of the best kids' books I think we've got around the house.  And gorgeous! The illustrations are collage-things, and downright fantastic.

It's a simple kind of story - but not a bit boring.  The princess has to deal with a lot of trauma - separation from her little girl, getting crumpled up, a horrible hairstyle - but she faces it all bravely.  Maybe it's because I'm just in a "chill, man" kind of mood, but it seemed a very peaceful sort of story.
I remember loving - loving - this book when I was little, and I think that's definitely a big point in its favor.  It was, you know, written for kids.  So I guess it's just as well.

CONCLUSION: I'll read it to my kids, if I ever have any.

If I end up as an illustrator (which, what with after getting through today's drawing class without wanting to weep, seems less impossible than usual), I will have to come up with some sort of, "Oh I ALWAYS knew this is what I wanted to do" story to scare the guts out of wishy washy people like me with - and I think I'll use The Paper Princess for my story.  Because - ahem! - when I was five I drew this:

Which, really, isn't so shabby.  I will not use "The Mouse and The Giant" (c. third grade) for my intimidation story.  My friend Bradi and I made it one afternoon, and even through I was the illustrator (we came up with the story and she wrote it - her cursive was better), I unfortunately wrestled away the privilege of writing the title on the cover, and it came out "The Mouse and the Ginte." So... we'll stick with the paper princess.

37/365 Just Being Audrey by Margaret Cardillo

Okay!  Ha! I've wanted to gush about this book for a long time, and now I'm finally going to do so! Yes!

I'll just cut to the point here.  THIS BOOK IS PERFECT.  I am a minor Audrey Hepburn nut.  I've read every biography about her in the San Diego County library system.  I've seen all but three of her movies (Monte Carlo Baby - she had, like, a teensy role - Always and Robin and Marion), and I could just scream I admire her so much.  Heck, for a while I had a whole blog devoted to her.
And this book made me shriek when I looked through it for the first time.  I almost danced.  Julia Denos did the illustrations, and every detail is SPOT ON.

The expressions in the lineup above.  As a girl, her dutch haircut and wide smile.  The clothes she wore through the years.  Heck!  Even the sort of bump at the end of her jaw that you could see when she was older!  I mean!? (I wonder if I'm being fanciful about this, but if you watch youtube videos of her en pointe and compare it with the feet in the book, they look identical. Not a lot of arch, if you know what I mean. It seems like almost too much, that.  I have a hard time believing that anyone but a rabid fan like me would give so much attention to the details.  This is why it is a marvelous book.)  She got every detail right.  Famous even makes an appearance.

I'm SO glad I was introduced to Julia Denos through this book - she's super cool.  I want to be like her when I grow up - even if I don't become an illustrator!  And if I do become an illustrator, I hope my studio is half as chic as hers is.  She put pictures of it on her marvelous blog, and it makes me want to weep.  Oh! Sudden fear: over the summer, did my desire for such a gorgeous workspace unconsciously plant the seed that became me declaring myself as an art major?  Heavens.

Also - this is just going to be a Julia Denos worship fest post, isn't it? - she is doing illustrations for the Hilary McKay Casson books!  GAAAA! Which are, like, some of the best books ever, no exceptions!  Hilary McKay is a genius and I will someday read one of her books for this project thingy, and then I will get to do some more squealing.  Yay. I can't even begin to babble about how EXCITED I am over the new packaging Denos is doing.  You should see her "Crime Pays" sketch.  This woman does her details right.  I'm probably just a fanatic about it, but nothing annoyed me more as a kid - what I am I saying? Annoys me more than illustrations that don't match the story.  Rant on the forthcoming.

SO.  Buy this book.  It is beautiful.

CONCLUSION:  I hope I get to be an illustrator.  I know that, if I did, my style would have to be different from Julia Denos' - as much as I love it - because I know I'd always be trying to ape her and failing.  I'll have to do my own thing.  Just like Audrey.

15/365 The Story of Ferdinand by Munro Leaf

Okay, I did not actually pull a "Squirrel Nutkin to the rescue" here.  I did read another book today, but I wanted to talk about this one.  So there.

Now boys and girls, today we're going to talk about the best picture book on earth.

Actually, we might not talk at all.  We might just look at these perfect pictures and weep.
Like I said, The Story of Ferdinand is the best picture book on earth.  Ever.  To infinity.  I will listen kindly to people who argue for Horton Hears a Who (even though they won't read it aloud to their kid because it takes too long), and I will just smile and pat them on the head.  Because those people are wrong.


This book is perfect.  The pictures are stunning and gorgeous and hilarious.  The story isn't episodic like a lot of picture books seem to be these days - it has a beginning, middle, and end.  For improving types, it has a message. It was written right before the outbreak of the Spanish Civil war, which I think it interesting.  It is short.  Kids can sit through it, adults can stomach it.  It is well-written, in a sparse kind of way.  The words and pictures are fitted together - and I do mean physically put together on the page - in a way that feels magical.  Look at that "O" in the top picture.  It's a bit tilted!  And it isn't a book that specifically messes with the words, the way others do.  It's just that one time.  The balance between empty expanses of white, and dense, detailed ink is just... just wonderful.

Boy, I'm getting sappy.

CONCLUSION: Well, it's probably pretty obvious, what I'm going to say.  YOU SHOULD READ FERDINAND.  If only because you, my dear imaginary reader, haven't seen some of the best pictures.  And because it is the best picture book on earth.

13/365 Dear James

This book made me feel somewhat less terrified to start art classes in the fall.   So many worries I've got about a possible future career in illustration were addressed.  The advice was really quite fantastic.

Among other things, he talked about how:

• You have to be relaxed to do good work (which is not rocket science, yet I still try to sit down and force myself to, "just draw something good, dang it!")
• Judging whether you're meant to do something by saying "would I die if I couldn't do this?" is ridiculous, 
• It's okay to be interested in lots things. 

Which are three of the major things I was worrying about.  He said going to a liberal arts college as opposed to art school (like I'm doing) can give you, "an enlarged frame of reference," which in turn, "gives breadth to an image. "  Which is a nice thing to hear, for sure, even if I don't know what it means.

So, I enjoyed this book.   If I do become an artist, I'm going to tack up some of his quotes on the wall.  It would have been perfectly nice as a straight essay, but the format he put it in (letters to an imagined young illustrator, just starting out) made it more engaging.   If it had been letters to a just-starting-out mathematician I wouldn't have read it.  But in my present, panicky state, I'd be happy to clutch at any applicable advice I can find - be it much duller reading than this.

CONCLUSION:  Good advice is a nice thing.   I need to go work on my signature.  Apparently a good signature is important.  Should I go for a pen name of some sort?  (Are they called pen names for artists?  It makes sense.)  My name isn't snappy and charming.  Chopped to first initial and last name for the mysterious touch?  I have no idea.  I don't even have a nickname I could write with a facetious slash of the pen.   I don't know why it would be facetious.  I'm proud that I can spell facetious.

P.S. What a good girl I am.  I began reading this at about six, and now (after some interruptions) I'm finishing the blog post at nine.  I will be in bed before one o'clock.  I am so proud.

Shakespeare Stories

My family is moving out of an apartment into a house in ten days (thank the Lord - four Fehlbergs is a lot of personality for 700 square feet), and I spent a good bit of the weekend packing books.  Good old Orhan Pamuk is right - while I was stacking and arranging the books into boxes, the covers did transport me back to the first time I read them. And it was great.  I came across The Random House Book of Shakespeare Stories, and wham-o! I was twelve again, lingering over the pages and planning the brain-implodingly expensive theatre versions I would put on.  (No fake flowers on the fairies, and immediate expulsion for any who could not manage to look graceful in flight and not, as I thought most actors did, like a bag of potatoes being heaved by a crane.  I would have been the director from hell.)  Being familiar with the re-written versions of the stories of Twelfth Night and Hamlet and A Midsummer Night's Dream before I read the real plays was actually lovely.  To sound completely pompous, it made them feel like better versions of good memories when I actually dove into the real deals.