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Little Roja Riding Hood
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From: K.T. Horning <horning_at_education.wisc.edu>
Date: Mon, 22 Sep 2014 11:50:15 -0500
This week we turn our discussion to a new book by Susan Middleton Elya,
"Little Roja Riding Hood," with illustrations by Susan Guevara, published by Putnam. I hope you all have gotten a chance to take a look at this amazing book. I have been a big fan of Susan Guevara's work as an illustrator, ever since she illustrated "Chato's Kitchen" by Gary Soto (Putnam, 1995), which was the very first winner of the Pura Belpre Award for illustration. That book taught me that when Susan Guevara illustrates a book, you have to really look at the illustrations. They go far beyond the text to include symbolism and visual subplots. And there is also a cultural element in her illustrations and this may only be fully understood and appreciated by a person who really understands Mexican American culture.
In our ongoing discussion this month, "Reading Pictures: Visual Literacy through Picture Books," we've been talking most recently about wordless picture books. "Little Roja" has words (and wonderful words they are!), but the illustrations extend the story beyond those words. That's why we selected this particular book to highlight in this month's discussion. And in an odd case of serendipity, the first week the CCBC was open in its new location, Susan Guevara herself happened to stop by to say hello. She was visiting Wisconsin from New Mexico, and wanted to see the CCBC while she was in the area. She not only agreed to participate in our discussion this week, she sent us scans of sketches from "Little Roja" as a work in progress,a s well as photos of objects, places and people that inspired her illustrations. Megan Schliesman created a special web page with all of this visual material, and Susan's written notes to us to explain her thought process. What a gift that is to us a readers! Whether you have read the book or not yourself, I encourage you all to spend some time looking at these pictures. They can be found here:
http://ccbc.education.wisc.edu/ccbcnet/roja.asp
For those of you who have not yet seen the book, if you haven't yet guessed from the book's title, "Little Roja" is a retelling of Little Red Riding Hood, with a distinctly Mexican American spin. There have been countless picture-book retellings of this particular classic folktale over the years, and the challenge for anyone taking this on as an author and/or illustrator is how to make it fresh and new. Author Susan Middleton Elya does this through her wry narrative voice, sprinkled with Spanish words and phrases. Guevara takes it even further by adding a few visual subplots (the Three Blind Mice, for example, join Little Roja on her trip to Abuela's house); by creating distinctive, strong characters in both Little Roja and her abuela (neither one is in need of rescuing); and by giving the story a particular setting, in this case, New Mexico. In the notes accompanying her sketches, Susan discusses the setting, and also talks about why she made the choices she did in terms of the subplots she added (including showing us some sketches of a subplot with The Three Bears that she abandoned).
For those of you who have seen the book, we invite you at this time to share your thoughts about it, your responses to Susan's sketches, and/or any questions you may have for her to answer when she joins our discussion on Wednesday.
--KT
Date: Mon, 22 Sep 2014 11:50:15 -0500
This week we turn our discussion to a new book by Susan Middleton Elya,
"Little Roja Riding Hood," with illustrations by Susan Guevara, published by Putnam. I hope you all have gotten a chance to take a look at this amazing book. I have been a big fan of Susan Guevara's work as an illustrator, ever since she illustrated "Chato's Kitchen" by Gary Soto (Putnam, 1995), which was the very first winner of the Pura Belpre Award for illustration. That book taught me that when Susan Guevara illustrates a book, you have to really look at the illustrations. They go far beyond the text to include symbolism and visual subplots. And there is also a cultural element in her illustrations and this may only be fully understood and appreciated by a person who really understands Mexican American culture.
In our ongoing discussion this month, "Reading Pictures: Visual Literacy through Picture Books," we've been talking most recently about wordless picture books. "Little Roja" has words (and wonderful words they are!), but the illustrations extend the story beyond those words. That's why we selected this particular book to highlight in this month's discussion. And in an odd case of serendipity, the first week the CCBC was open in its new location, Susan Guevara herself happened to stop by to say hello. She was visiting Wisconsin from New Mexico, and wanted to see the CCBC while she was in the area. She not only agreed to participate in our discussion this week, she sent us scans of sketches from "Little Roja" as a work in progress,a s well as photos of objects, places and people that inspired her illustrations. Megan Schliesman created a special web page with all of this visual material, and Susan's written notes to us to explain her thought process. What a gift that is to us a readers! Whether you have read the book or not yourself, I encourage you all to spend some time looking at these pictures. They can be found here:
http://ccbc.education.wisc.edu/ccbcnet/roja.asp
For those of you who have not yet seen the book, if you haven't yet guessed from the book's title, "Little Roja" is a retelling of Little Red Riding Hood, with a distinctly Mexican American spin. There have been countless picture-book retellings of this particular classic folktale over the years, and the challenge for anyone taking this on as an author and/or illustrator is how to make it fresh and new. Author Susan Middleton Elya does this through her wry narrative voice, sprinkled with Spanish words and phrases. Guevara takes it even further by adding a few visual subplots (the Three Blind Mice, for example, join Little Roja on her trip to Abuela's house); by creating distinctive, strong characters in both Little Roja and her abuela (neither one is in need of rescuing); and by giving the story a particular setting, in this case, New Mexico. In the notes accompanying her sketches, Susan discusses the setting, and also talks about why she made the choices she did in terms of the subplots she added (including showing us some sketches of a subplot with The Three Bears that she abandoned).
For those of you who have seen the book, we invite you at this time to share your thoughts about it, your responses to Susan's sketches, and/or any questions you may have for her to answer when she joins our discussion on Wednesday.
--KT
-- */Please note: The CCBC has moved to Teacher Education, 225 N. Mills St. /* Kathleen T. Horning Director Cooperative Children's Book Center (CCBC) 401 Teacher Education Building 225 N. Mills Street Madison, WI 53706 http://www.education.wisc.edu/ccbc horning_at_education.wisc.edu 608-263-3721 (phone) 608-262-4933 (fax) ==== CCBC-Net Use ==== You are currently subscribed to ccbc-net as: ccbc-archive_at_post.education.wisc.edu. To post to the list, send message to... ccbc-net_at_lists.wisc.edu To receive messages in digest format, send a blank message to... digest-ccbc-net_at_lists.wisc.edu To unsubscribe, send a blank message to... leave-ccbc-net_at_lists.wisc.edu ==== CCBC-Net Archives ==== The CCBC-Net archives are available to all CCBC-Net listserv members. The archives are organized by month and year. A list of discussion topics (including month/year) is available at... http://www.education.wisc.edu/ccbc/ccbcnet/archives.asp To access the archives, go to... http://ccbc.education.wisc.edu/ccbc-net ...and enter the following when prompted... username: ccbc-net password: Look4PostsReceived on Mon 22 Sep 2014 11:58:39 AM CDT
