When you look back at the 30s and 40s, it is so cool to think that without movies and computers and advertising, all the world's visual entertainment for children ~ for the most part ~ came in the form of books. The wonder and mystery they must have held, opening up worlds of the imagination that had previously been untouched. Holding those titles now in your hand... books that have been around the block, read hundreds of times... you almost wish the books could tell a different story of all the places they've been and readers who've loved them. My goodness, wouldn't that be a thing of wonder?In the midst of my momma drama last summer, I found this one tucked on the shelf of a little junk store two towns over from my mom's place in Virginia. The small size and the layered frays on the corners just kill me. It is the perfect present for a grownup palm or the little hands of a child wanting to see. It has the look and the feel of all the things I love about this hobby, not to mention it was inked by one Ms. Wanda Gag, so you know it's simply darling.
It's also a translation of the original Grimm tale, so it includes all the wicked tidbits that have since been omitted... the prick of blood, the supposed eating of the girl's heart...
Once upon a time, in the middle of winter, the snowflakes were falling like feathers from the sky. At a castle window framed in ebony sat a young Queen working at her embroidery, and as she was stitching away and gazing at the snowflakes now and then, she pricked her finger and three little drops of blood fell down upon the snow. And because the color red looked so beautiful there on the snow she thought to herself, "Oh if I only had a little child as white as snow, as rosy red as blood, and with hair as ebon black as the window frame."
We all know what happens next. She gets her wee one, and then dies shortly thereafter leaving the girl behind. As the story goes, her wicked stepmother queen has a little pow pow with her mirror and finds out she is not as hot as she thinks. The rest is history.
We love Wanda Gag at my house. Hers are some of the oldest picture books around, but she never fails to enrapture my son through her stories and incredible black and white drawings. Take note of the mirror match up between the peacock and the queen. Gorgeous.
A muchly much much more optimistic morning. I have to think the government will do the right thing over the next few months and alter this crazy law to make vintage kids' books legal again, so I don't expect to be out of business too too long. I've posted a ton of stuff in the Etsy store today with plans to post more in the next day or two. Again, the pre-85 books will stay up til midnight Friday and there is $3 flat rate shipping on all orders in the Continental US til then too. Saturday, I'll take all pre-85 books down and add a bunch printed during that golden '85 to '89 era I'll be focusing on just to keep the store up and running. Ha! (Surprising, I actually have more than you might think.)
That said, I have a gorgeous ex-library and like-new hardcover, plastic-covered copy of The Funny Thing by Wanda Gag. The book was printed in 2003, so it is guaranteed cootie-free. (I'm also going to look deeper into the "giving away" rules as if I can't sell the darn things, I'd at least love to be able to give them to you for free!) All you have to do to be entered to win is make a comment on this post before midnight, Feb. 22. A winner will be announced the following morning.
As for last week's give.... the winner is Celeste. Shoot me an e-mail at webe(at)soon(dot)com, and I'll get your awesome copy of Umbrella out to you ASAP.
Thanks to everyone for your enthusiastic comments on The Great Holiday Give. You still have two days to enter all five giveaways, so be sure to get at it before Sunday around midnight.
Now, in keeping up my weekend theme of interviewing contemporary artists about their vintage book influences...
Every once in a while, you come across an author who breaks your heart every time you pick up one of their books. Eric Rohmann is definitely that for me. His images are beautiful and his words come from a place that is sweet and poetic and full of heart, yet equally strange and alluring.
The very first book I gave my son was Eric's haunting Cinder-Eyed Cats. It was a book I had gotten years before he was born, and kept on my bookshelf waiting for a child to give it to. Something about the pictures really spoke to me and the story of traveling to some magic place was sublime with a Little Prince feel. (One of my absolute first loves.)
As chance would have it, I had a child with a sentiment very much like my own. When he was barely one, he'd beg me to read it over and over and over, and soon after, fell in love with Eric's exquisite Caldecott Medal-winning, My Friend Rabbit.
The boy and book adoration was so intense, that I felt compelled to write Mr. Rohmann a letter gushing how my son prized his books. Much to my surprise, a few weeks later, a box arrived on our doorstep filled with books and posters and the dearest handwritten letter.
How could you not love an artist, a stranger, who would do that for your child?
For this reason, Eric Rohmann will always be our favorite author. Always.
That said, when I e-mailed Eric out of the blue a few weeks ago, he was kind enough to agree to participate in my new weekend author series, so please welcome the Caldecott-winning illustrator and the author of his latest, Bone Dog, Mr. Eric Rohmann.
VKBMKL: Welcome. You've mentioned before that you weren’t a big reader as a child, that it wasn’t really until high school that you were drawn to picture books. Do you remember the first picture book you ever saw that sucked you in?
ERIC: I’m sure it wasn’t the first picture book I’d ever seen, but Wanda Gag’s, Millions of Cats has always stayed with me. It’s an improbable story, beautifully made and as a kid I recall it took me away from home and put me in a world where such wonders always happen. Honestly, as a kid I read mostly comic books. I’m sure I read many picture books, but their impact really hit me only when I started to seriously draw. The pictures I made told stories and in the end that is what a picture book does best. The comics led to looking back at picture books.
VKBMKL: In interviews you've suggesting people interested in being children’s book authors should go back and look at vintage titles. Are there any books that you love as an adult and turn to for inspiration? Do you have a collection?
There are so many others, but these are some that I look at again and again to make sense of what I’m doing in the studio. Oh, and I do have a larger collection that follows me wherever I go--the public library!
VKBMKL: Are there any particular images that stay stuck in your head?
ERIC: The wordless double page spreads from Where the Wild Things Are; the way the hills in Millions of Cats lead the eye through the story; Lisbeth Zwerger’s use of space and subtle watercolor; James Marshall’s profound silliness; Robert Lawson’s flawless black ink drawing; the sweetness of Clare Newberry’s cats; the perfection of Kevin Henke’s storytelling.
VKBMKL: Your books have such an innocence. The box you sent us included your book Clara and Asha, the story of a girl and her friend, a giant flying fish. My son loved that book, and wept openly on every read at the point when the fish and the girl say goodbye. (Similarly, he would do this at the end of Danny and the Dinosaur.) All of your characters show a greater empathy about the world that I think children relate to. Each has a larger cosmic meaning than what the simple stories would imply. Is that implicit on your part, or is that something you consciously write into your stories?
ERIC: First off, thanks for putting me in the same group as the splendid Danny and the Dinosaur! And thanks for the kind comments, although I must admit that when I approach a book I’m trying to tell a compelling story first and through the telling, the meaning finds its way. The two themes that seem to emerge in every book are friendship and coming home. I can’t say I ever think of those themes when I write, but they are always there, and so when I work, they bubble up and find their way into the stories.
Next up for a dust-off on this fabulous Update Friday is a family favorite and a guest post from 2008, The Funny Thing by Wanda Gag. I've added all new scans and love. Enjoy kids!
VKBMKL: Any children's book illustrators that you love that you discovered as an adult? Or is there a book you find yourself buying over and over again to give to your son's friends?
CARSON: I discovered Alice and Martin Provensen five or six years ago and I couldn't believe I hadn't known of them before. I feel so kindred to them - it seemed impossible that they hadn't been influencing me my whole life. Also, Taro Gomi, Mitsumasa Anno, Miroslav Sasek, Ivan Bilibin, Wanda Gag, Tove Jansson, and Tomi Ungerer, who I didn't truly discover as an adult - I read Crictor and Flat Stanley as a kid - but I don't think I really understood what an amazing, weird genius he was until recently.
As for oft purchased books, I've bought a lot of copies of both Little Fur Family by Margaret Wise Brown and Garth Williams and My Friends by Taro Gomi. They're two of my favorite board books and board books are my favorite gifts to give to new parents.
VKBMKL: Did you go into illustration with children's books in mind or is that something that came about later on?
CARSON: I've wanted to illustrate children's books since I was a kid but I didn't study illustration in college. I grew up in New York but was strongly, mysteriously drawn to the University of Montana, where I got a painting degree because they didn't offer illustration classes. I assumed it would be more or less the same idea. It wasn't. I graduated knowing nothing about illustration - not what an art director does, nor how to use a computer, nor what the term "editorial illustration" means. After college, I was a painter and I worked a lot of cocktail waitressing and bartending jobs. My first illustration gigs were the work I did for The Decemberists - album art, flyers, drawings for t-shirts and websites. More and more people saw that stuff and it led to editorial work, which eventually led to book work. So it was always the goal to illustrate books but I came to it in a long, roundabout way.
VKBMKL: As the subject matter hits home for this blog, can you tell me how the idea for the "Reading Frenzy" print came about?
CARSON: My friend (and fellow vintage kids' book enthusiast) Chloe Eudaly owns an awesome little bookstore in Portland called Reading Frenzy. I made the print for her to sell there. It's a portrait of Hank who really exists in a perpetual reading frenzy, though this illustration is a bit staged. If this was an actual portrait of my son reading, half the books in this pile would be Eyewitness Books. It's an ode to Hank and his love of reading but equally to the books I especially love.
VKBMKL: I've always been fascinated by married couples who work together in children's literature: Ruth Krauss and Crocket Johnson; Leo and Diane Dillon; Martin and Alice Provensen. How has working on The Wildwood Chronicles with your husband changed your home life and how has it affected you as an artist?
CARSON: It was fun and challenging. In general, I've found there's not a lot of collaboration happening between authors and illustrators of books these days. Illustrators are typically handed finished manuscripts and there's not really an invitation to offer criticism or feedback. And, in my experience, it goes both ways - I've never gotten feedback from an author on my sketches and, in a couple of cases, the author didn't even see the illustrations until the final art was all done. So, of course, working with Colin was really different. We thought about Wildwood, talked about it and worked on it around the clock. Creative collaboration can be a messy and painful thing though, especially when undertaken by people who love each other and who are comfortable being honest with each other about what they like and don't like. We fought over things in a way I never would with another author. There's something to be said for having an editor as a diplomat and go-between. That said, we've been collaborating for over ten years on all things Decemberists so we're not strangers to that process; to hurting feelings, melting down and then somehow, in the end, coming to accord. Disagreeing seems an inevitable part of the process for us but I think we've gotten pretty good at it. I also think there's a sort of telepathy that happens between married couples that really streamlines creative collaboration. I can often picture what Colin is envisioning when he writes a passage and he can often picture what the illustration will look like when I draw it. In this way, once we settled on how Wildwood would look - it's medium and palette - the interior illustrations came really easily and peacefully.As for how it changed our home life, I'd say, occasional bickering aside, it was very sweet. We're both always working on something - each of us knee deep in some all-consuming project - and it was fun to have that project be the same thing for both of us this time. Our household revolved around Wildwood for a couple of years. We were always thinking and talking about it; Colin read Hank and I new pages at the end of every day; Hank was totally wrapped up in it. We were really immersed in that world.
VKBMKL: And one silly question about your husband. In his music, as in what I've read so far of the book, he's a very lyrical writer. He often uses dated phrasing and words, and I wondered if he talks like that in real life or if he keeps note books where he collects words that strike him?
CARSON: Ha! No, he doesn't talk like that. He's an articulate guy and an eloquent speaker when he wants to be. He loves lyrical, multi-syllabic words and I guess he'd use words like palanquin and bombazine and arabesque if they came up in conversation but, really, how often do they come up in conversation?
Thanks Carson. My husband and son have been reading a chapter a night of Wildwood for the past few weeks, and it's right up my son's alley. Nature and fantasy combined is his perfection.
Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs 
In the midst of my momma drama last summer, I found this one tucked on the shelf of a little junk store two towns over from my mom's place in Virginia. The small size and the layered frays on the corners just kill me. It is the perfect present for a grownup palm or the little hands of a child wanting to see. It has the look and the feel of all the things I love about this hobby, not to mention it was inked by one Ms. Wanda Gag, so you know it's simply darling.
Once upon a time, in the middle of winter, the snowflakes were falling like feathers from the sky. At a castle window framed in ebony sat a young Queen working at her embroidery, and as she was stitching away and gazing at the snowflakes now and then, she pricked her finger and three little drops of blood fell down upon the snow. And because the color red looked so beautiful there on the snow she thought to herself, "Oh if I only had a little child as white as snow, as rosy red as blood, and with hair as ebon black as the window frame."
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