8 Comments

Love all of this. And Jon, I can't help but think about you and THE SKULL with Sendak the fresco and WILD THINGS.

We go to the Art Institute of Chicago a lot, and one of the ways my 4yo gets into it is by thinking about "which piece of art [book character] would like best," and -- and this is so obvious, I feel silly -- now I'm excited to prompt him to find art that reminds him of illustrations in his favorite books. (And maybe I should do some research, too.)

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Mind blowing stuff. I can't thank you enough for offering this ... insight, conversation, education, geek-out, ... whatever it is, I've been waiting for it. Thanks!!!

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Wow! Thanks for digging deeper into these, so cool. Just a little more about the tiny house on the hill idea, it also makes me think of the famous Steinberg New Yorker cover, "View of the World from 9th Avenue". Capturing the childlike feeling of scale: here's my house, up on this area in the middle, and then all the other things I'm aware of are around it, tapering off into who-knows-what. I've always thought of Tomie dePaola as someone who really nailed the feeling of the simplicity and importance of collapsed space for a child's mind.

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I have linked Tolkien's illustration style with Rudyard Kipling's for years--the drawings for Just-So Stories are so clearly an influence!

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Another fantastic discussion. I love seeing the cross-pollination that happens, consciously or not, between artists. And thanks for the bonus of the film-strip version of A WOGGLE OF WITCHES. Instantly transported me back to the darkened classrooms of my early elementary years (totally aging myself, here) with that little beep to tell the teacher when to advance the strip to the next frame!

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Once my teacher picked me to advance the film strip! What a rush,I believe this is what they are now calling a “core memory”.

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Jon: Thank you for bringing up, Charles E. Burchfield.

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The film strip was a treat. 🧙🏻‍♀️

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