How could I have missed David Wiesner?
By Jerry Griswold
When my friend Matt Harris asked me what I thought about his books, my ignorance was unaccountable. I would later learn that Wiesner was a celebrated author/illustrator with a 30-year career and two Caldecott Awards. Moreover, he was, as it were, a friend of friends since he moved in a circle in which I have a keen interest, a group that includes Walter Lorraine (the famed children’s book editor at Houghton Mifflin) and Chris Van Allsburgh (the well known picture book artist who likewise went to Rhode Island School of Design). My ignorance was also unexplainable because, I would subsequently discover, Wiesner creates that very kind of surreal picture book I especially like...
By Jerry Griswold
When my friend Matt Harris asked me what I thought about his books, my ignorance was unaccountable. I would later learn that Wiesner was a celebrated author/illustrator with a 30-year career and two Caldecott Awards. Moreover, he was, as it were, a friend of friends since he moved in a circle in which I have a keen interest, a group that includes Walter Lorraine (the famed children’s book editor at Houghton Mifflin) and Chris Van Allsburgh (the well known picture book artist who likewise went to Rhode Island School of Design). My ignorance was also unexplainable because, I would subsequently discover, Wiesner creates that very kind of surreal picture book I especially like...
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I too love Weisner, and David Macaulay (Black and White), and Anthony Browne (A Walk in the Park). These Postmodern picture book artists play with visuals in a way that both comments on the book as a book and mimics nonsense rhyme -- allowing the reader to invest his/her own meaning in the text, although I agree that Weisner's Three Pigs seems a bit too literal for adults in its "off the page" approach.
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