Wednesday, March 7, 2012

A Boy Called Dickens by Deborah Hopkinson; illustrated by John Hendrix



Last February marked the 200th anniversary of the birth of Charles Dickens and what better way to celebrate than with a picture book to introduce him to a new generation of young readers. A Boy Called Dickens chronicles Charles Dickens' early childhood working in a factory and living on his own--while the rest of his family was living in a debtor's prison. Taken out of school and forced to sell his books to a pawn shop, Charles is so obviously desperate for more of these stories that he becomes a storyteller himself. He gets through his rather bleak days by telling stories to his fellow coworkers and dreaming up new ones at night in his bed. And Deborah Hopkinson does a great job evoking this very same storytelling feel. Throughout the text she addresses the reader and asks us questions (although most are rhetorical) which gives the book a very obvious and present narrator. This book makes for a great read-aloud in a classroom for this very  reason.
© 2012 by John Hendrix
In addition to the appropriately pitched voice, John Hendrix's illustrations are completely spot on. The characters are all varying levels of gritty and the streets are all grimy, which paints a (thankfully) much more realistic picture of the 1820s than I would have expected in a picture book. Hendrix also has a great way of illustrating the characters and stories floating around in Charles' head. He draws them as these wisps of ghastly blue that I can only imagine are meant to evoke the ghosts from Charles Dickens' own A Christmas Carol.  In addition to the wonderful illustrations, Hendrix also incorporates some of his beautiful typography throughout the book too. As you can see from the cover, Hendrix has a great eye for type design and including this "word art" adds a lot to the mood of a picture book about an author. You can see my favorite spread of the entire book above and, as you probably notice, it has everything: dirt & grime, ghoulish inspiration, and words leaping off of the page.

Thursday, March 1, 2012

UNUSUAL SUSPECTS: The Cat in the Hat & The Lorax illustrated by Dan Santat


© Dan Santat
In honor of the anniversary of Dr. Seuss's birthday and the upcoming release of The Lorax, I thought I would bring up these wonderful sketches by the talented Dan Santat. Santat is one of my favorite illustrators (if you haven't already, do yourself a favor and pick up Sidekicks)! Now don't get me wrong, I'm obviously a huge fan of Dr. Seuss' work, but there's just something about the three-dimensional/cinematic quality of Santat's art style that's so appealing. I'd be really interested to see what how these would look in color.
© Dan Santat
Apparently these sketches are for an upcoming Dr. Suess themed show at Gallery Nucleus, so I'm looking forward to seeing what other artits are contributing. And if you're interested in seeing more sketches by Dan Santat, he has a wonderful blog--A Slow Growing Mass of Tangible Thoughts--where he occasionally posts work from his sketchbook.