From: Nina Lindsay <linds_na>
Date: Thu, 23 Dec 1999 10:32:09 -0800 (PST)

I can't recall if anyone has mentioned SWINE LAKE yet, written by James Marshall and posthumously published, illustrated by Maurice Sendak. Besides being a charming and original tale with classic themes and funny, precise language, the book itself is beautifully designed from the cut size (smallish, almost square) to the typeface (a bold sans-serif in grey
-- easy to read, but compliments, doesn't dominate, the page) to the layout/illustrations which make each turning of a double-page spread look like the opening of curtains upon a stage. I like this especially as a gift book because parents will enjoy it on a different level from their children, and young children can appreciate the plot, but will grow into the subtlety in the characterization and the asides in the language and the detailed illustrations. Sendak has put a lot of his own messages as asides in the pictures -- notice, in a bookstore window, the sign advertising "signed first editions of Herman Melville's classic -- Free!"
(Sendak is a Melville fan); or, on a pig in a crowd, the George and Martha t-shirt.

Nina


Nina Lindsay, Children's Librarian Melrose Branch, Oakland Public Library 4805 Foothill Boulevard Oakland, CA 94601
(510)535V23 linds_na at oak2.ci.oakland.ca.us
Received on Thu 23 Dec 1999 12:32:09 PM CST