My mom, the elementary school librarian, brought me a few new books to take a peek at yesterday...
The first was Judith Viorst's Lulu and the Brontosaurus, illustrated by Lane Smith. I didn't read the whole thing--a lot of words this one--but, I paid close attention to the pictures. It was good to see Smith going back to more of a hand drawn approach (just black and white drawings) instead of his usual computer perfected illustrations.
The second book was The Robin Makes a Laughing Sound: A Birdies Journal, by Sallie Wolf, designed by Micah Bornstein. This one has really great pictures. A mixture of sketchy drawings with watercolor along with a bit of "collaging" or handcrafted cutting pasting. The story is told through a bird's journal entries (if you couldn't tell by the title.) Very clever and a great read.
The third book was Jerry Garcia's Amazing Grace. This book features the Amazing Grace lyrics by John Newton along with a CD with the song performed by Garcia, David Grisman, and Tony Rice...the band of Garcia's bluegrass days. The pictures are Garcia's paintings and sketches, which really make the book something special, not just for kids.
Besides the wonderful drawings, the best part of the book is the introduction written by, widow, Deborah Koons Garcia. Fantastic stuff!
So go run to your library or local independently owned bookstore and grab these gems!








