Tuesday, May 18, 2010

Tenggren's Pirates, Ships and Sailors

Tenggren's Pirates, Ships and Sailors
Kathryn and Byron Jackson
with pictures by Gustaf Tenggren
Simon and Schuster, 1950


Found a minute to myself after a full day already and scooped up this Giant Golden Book that's been sitting around my mother's house, lifted from her best friend. I took it outside and cracked it open only to be bombarded with spectacular images of pirates, ships and sailors. (Imagine that.) Detailed paintings of bright boys who dream and dark rascals who capture and the things that swim in the sea. Tomorrow, I'll be back in Texas with a full review of a book from one of the many my mother has hoarded away for me, but in the meantime...

Sometimes at night when I'm in bed
I pull the covers round my head,
For fog horns on the big dark lake
Cry out and keep me wide awake.
They take a breath and then they cry,
With voices shrill or deep or high,
"W-H-H-H-O-O-O ARE YOU?"
And "W-H-E-R-E AM I?"


Also by:
The Lively Little Rabbit
The Around the Year Storybook
Little Galoshes

5 comments:

  1. Fabulous illustrations! As if they were painted from brushes dipped directly into a rainbow. YUM! Thanks for this share!

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  2. I have had this book for years. The illustrations are great. Particularly all the pirate ones.

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  3. i want this book! it looks beautiful!

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  4. God, I wish I painted more like Tenggren. I've seen many of his originals at the Kerlan Collection in Minneapolis and they are breathtaking in person. The tempera hasn't held up perfectly over the years, but the little cracks through the paintings make them seem all the more precious.

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  5. I haven't seen this book before. The illustrations are wonderful. Gustaf Tenggren had a way with color.

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