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Illustrated poetry from the past
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From: Barbara Tobin <barbarat>
Date: Sat, 19 Apr 2003 08:08:00 -0400
Lee mentioned the joyful images she retains from her old copy of Robert Louis Stevenson's A Child's Garden of Verses, with color plates by Jessie Willcox Smith.
This made me think about how it could be a rich study for children to compare the various illustrations of this poetry collection over the years, much as Monica does with her wonderful comparative studies of illustrators of Alice in Wonderland with her fourth graders (The Many Faces of Alice -- http://www.dalton.org/ms/alice/). I'm not sure how many different illustrators have had a shot at Stevenson's poems, but the visual images of Alice and Martin Provensen are strikingly different than those of Tasha Tudor.
Then there are some poetry collections that have been re-illustrated perhaps for other than aesthetic reasons. I am thinking of Eloise Greenfield's marvelous Honey, I Love and Other Poems. Personally, I love the original illustrations by Diane and Leo Dillon (1978), but I was not sensitive to the way these illustrations dated the book and left open the possibility of ridicule of the giant Afro do's (this was pointed out to me by two of my African American student teachers over ten years ago, saying they would NEVER use this book--that caught me by surprise). Now that Afros seem to be back in fashion again (in fact, there seems to be a wide range of acceptable hairstyles now, or am I mistaken?), perhaps the Dillons' exquisite black and white sketches might no longer be so offensive to some. Not wanting to create another Nappy Hair storm, I am raising this issue for adults, rather than kids, the comparison with the new illustrations I have seen in HarperFestival's Let's Read Aloud version of Honey, I Love (just the title poem) by Jan Spivey Gilchrist
(1995). Jan updates the illustrations to give a more contemporary look
(and less dreamlike feel).
Here's another opportunity for children to compare the layout of a poem when it gets re-issued in a different form, when three double spread pages of illustrated stanzas get stretched over eight-- and when the breathless rush of words all crammed up so effectively on those three pages gets slowed down to walking pace, in more of a narrative form.
What are some other interesting examples of re-illustrated poetry books for children?
Barbara Tobin (barbarat at gse.upenn)
Received on Sat 19 Apr 2003 07:08:00 AM CDT
Date: Sat, 19 Apr 2003 08:08:00 -0400
Lee mentioned the joyful images she retains from her old copy of Robert Louis Stevenson's A Child's Garden of Verses, with color plates by Jessie Willcox Smith.
This made me think about how it could be a rich study for children to compare the various illustrations of this poetry collection over the years, much as Monica does with her wonderful comparative studies of illustrators of Alice in Wonderland with her fourth graders (The Many Faces of Alice -- http://www.dalton.org/ms/alice/). I'm not sure how many different illustrators have had a shot at Stevenson's poems, but the visual images of Alice and Martin Provensen are strikingly different than those of Tasha Tudor.
Then there are some poetry collections that have been re-illustrated perhaps for other than aesthetic reasons. I am thinking of Eloise Greenfield's marvelous Honey, I Love and Other Poems. Personally, I love the original illustrations by Diane and Leo Dillon (1978), but I was not sensitive to the way these illustrations dated the book and left open the possibility of ridicule of the giant Afro do's (this was pointed out to me by two of my African American student teachers over ten years ago, saying they would NEVER use this book--that caught me by surprise). Now that Afros seem to be back in fashion again (in fact, there seems to be a wide range of acceptable hairstyles now, or am I mistaken?), perhaps the Dillons' exquisite black and white sketches might no longer be so offensive to some. Not wanting to create another Nappy Hair storm, I am raising this issue for adults, rather than kids, the comparison with the new illustrations I have seen in HarperFestival's Let's Read Aloud version of Honey, I Love (just the title poem) by Jan Spivey Gilchrist
(1995). Jan updates the illustrations to give a more contemporary look
(and less dreamlike feel).
Here's another opportunity for children to compare the layout of a poem when it gets re-issued in a different form, when three double spread pages of illustrated stanzas get stretched over eight-- and when the breathless rush of words all crammed up so effectively on those three pages gets slowed down to walking pace, in more of a narrative form.
What are some other interesting examples of re-illustrated poetry books for children?
Barbara Tobin (barbarat at gse.upenn)
Received on Sat 19 Apr 2003 07:08:00 AM CDT
