"There Is A Tree" by Marti Richtmyer Nash

I recently discovered this gem of a picture book at a local nature center. It was published in 2007 and is illustrated with hand-colored woodcuts by Vermont printmaker Marti Richtmyer Nash.

The literal story is simply the sights and musings of a solitary, little boy exploring the great outdoors. As there is no strong narrative, it is really much more a series of beautiful fine art prints, enriched by light prose. 

What grabbed me the most about this book was the constantly changing perspectives in the imagery. For example, in two of the images we see the boy's shorts, legs, and feet, once from the perspective of someone standing on the ground looking up at him, then again from the boy's own point of view, looking down.

The tree of the title, and where the boy sits perched, is essential to the perspective. Because he is looking down or up or across from an already elevated position, and from a branch that itself might sway under the boy's weight and movements, it becomes difficult to work out the gravitational pull or light source in many of the images. All together I read them as flashes of almost overwhelming layers of moving texture. I could feel the breeze and the flicker of sunlight as it was refracted through the passing clouds.

At the end the boy comes down from the tree, the sun sets, and the artist offers a couple views of the green land under a beautiful, yet massive and somewhat turbulent sky. I feel the boy's esteem for nature's grandeur, and because I am once against seeing him from a distance, I feel a deeper sense of my own humility and awe.

"The Blue Jackal" by Marcia Brown

Yesterday I wrote about Marcia Brown, who just passed away this month. The reason the artist was on my mind was because upon returning from vacation Monday, I received The Blue Jackal. It is a picturebook, published in 1977 and illustrated in color woodcuts.

I have been thinking a great deal about the similarities between music and visual imagery. The train of thought was sparked by reading Maurice Sendak's Caldecott and Co.: Notes On Books and Pictures, which opens with a short essay about the music Sendak would hear when he looked at the work of Randolf Caldecott. He also wrote about the influence of music on his own work.

Reading this felt like a deep revelation, as I suddenly realized that when I read certain picture books out loud to my children, I sometimes add my own music out loud, and the music I make up seems intuitively in response to the illustrations. For example, in Sendak's Where the Wild Things Are, after the line "Let the wild rumpus start" there are three full-bleed, double-page spreads of Max and the wild things making amok, and I have always instinctively added an energetic jungle beat soundtrack when I turn to those pages.

I now find myself consciously thinking about what music I hear in my head in response to images, and how some images conjure up more distinct sounds than others. I realize that in many of my blog posts responding to single images, I have included descriptions of sounds and onomatopoeia in my reflections.

Marcia Brown's The Blue Jackal conjures up layers of sound and music for me. I cannot look at the cover without hearing the jackal's howl and a fierce wind blowing.

Even the end pages (second image shown here) present such a dynamic and layered composition that I hear the monkeys chatter and scurry across the tree branches to the distant beat of a drum.

When the jackal walks along the road toward the city (third image), there are hints of danger and desperation as the quivering rays of the sun intermingle with the bounce of the intruding clouds and sweeping crash of the landscape. Beyond lies the blue city, so stately that I can almost hear soft-yet-regal trumpets sounding hope.

The page spreads that describe the forest animals encountering the jackal (now dyed indigo,) crowning him their ruler, and driving away the other jackals remind me a great deal of Sendak's "wild rumpus" sequence. The interplay of shapes and colors is like a samba, fast-paced and energetic.

The action and thus the music speeds up as the animals get more frantic in their glorification of their blue jackal king (fourth image.) Then, suddenly, there is a harsh pause when the jackal hears the distant howls of his fellows.

The jackal's anguished muzzle in the foreground bursts into the next page-spread (fifth image,) sounding his own HOWL. The monkey scampers away - trot trot trot -  the turtle yells - yah! - and the rest of the forest animals collapse into each other, their folds, stripes, and spots lending a background chorus of plinks, plonks, and hums to the song.

I can look at this book over and over again, just as I can listen to a favorite piece of music over and over again. And like a beloved song, each time I re-experience it, I am taken aback at how much more electrifying it is than the memory which lives in my mind.

"Submarine" by Marcia Brown

Three weeks ago the accomplished illustrator Marcia Brown passed away. Brown was a master of woodcuts (among other mediums,) and won the Caldecott medal three times, including for Once A Mouse, a fable in woodcuts. Jil Casey posted several images from Once A Mouse on the blog The Art of Children's Picture Books. You can also read Marcia Brown's obituary in the New York Times.

Skimming along just above the surface, we see above and below. Spindly feelers stretch out as we pass through the shrouds of water and air. Eye wide open, always moving, we are armored by steal scales and ready for any encounter. Like a fish with wings, we are caught between worlds.

Antonio Frasconi's "The House That Jack Built"

About a week ago I stumbled a used copy for sale of The House that Jack Built: La Maison Que Jacques A Batie, which is a picture book in English and French by Antonio Frasconi. It was selling for just almost nothing so I had to buy it, and yesterday my treasure arrived in the mail. The cover is rather beat up, and it appears to be a well-loved library copy, but the pages are in good shape and I haven't been able to stop staring at it all day. (Funny aside: my two kids who are ages 3 and 5 could care less.)

Frasconi's book illustrations exhibit every quality of woodcuts I love: using the wood's resistance for more expressive mark-making, using the grain to add organic textures, and a general economy of marks. As a picture book with words on most pages, the compositions are unexpected. In almost every spread the woodcuts bleed partially off the page, but in different ways each time. Only black, white, and three colors (magenta, green, and yellow) are used, but they take turns filling the large swaths of background areas. The main text of the rhyme discretely rests in the negative spaces, but the typography for the onomatopoeia of the dog's "Grrrs" and the church bell's "Ding Dongs"  is arranged as part of the visual imagery.

Just as with all of Frasconi's woodcuts I've encountered, the work seems so completely inspired. He makes it look so easy, as if these visual arrangements simply flow through him onto the block, then to the page. Looking at this work makes me want to run off to some isolated retreat and just make woodcuts for months.

Christopher Wormell's "Fifteen Leopard Rosettes"

I've promoted Christopher Wormell's linocuts for children on this blog once before. But such gorgeously illustrated picture books deserve repeated mention.

Just this week I stumbled a rather well-loved copy of his counting book Teeth, Tails, & Tentacles in the library at my daughter's preschool. One of my favorite things about this book was the use of unexpected vocabulary. For example, for the number 15, Wormell features fifteen leopard rosettes. I've never before encountered the use of that term to describe the large, two-toned spots on a cat, but it's lovely and fitting. So often books for the very young avoid using big words, which is a shame, since how else are children to learn such words if they aren't exposed to them in a memorable context?

Wormell's bold linocuts are definitely memorable. I encourage readers to peruse the entire collection of his illustrated children's books on his website, here.