"Who is coming to our house?"
"Someone, someone," says Mouse.
Normally I hate rhyming stories. Actually I really, really detest most of them, including the ones that come with Sunday School and VBS curriculum; and the cuter they are, the less I like them. These rhymes, though, seem to fit with the old carolling traditions, such as "The Friendly Beasts," and with older children's books like Johnny Crow's Garden. It's more like reading poetry than something that just had to fit into rhyming lines.
"Spin new webs," says Spider.
"I will line the crib with eider." [That's a goose talking, not the spider.]
Gotta like any picture book that uses vocabulary like "eider."
This Is the Star, by Joyce Dunbar, illustrated by Gary Blythe (1996)
I don't know how the illustrations for this book were done; I think they're oil paintings; in any case, they're eerily realistic and unusual...I especially like the scene of Joseph, Mary and the donkey, with a large, sandy foreground covered with footprints.
The text itself is okay--it follows the "This is the house that Jack built" pattern:
This the donkey with precious load
Trudging the long and weary road,
Looked on by the angel shining bright
Who came to the shepherds watching by night
That saw the star in the sky.
The First Night, by B.G. Hennessy. Paintings by Steven Johnson with Lou Fancher (1993)
This book explains at the beginning exactly how the artwork was done: "In preparing the art for this book, butternut wood was chosen for its texture. The sketch for each painting was drawn on the wood and the lines cut in with a carving tool, while the outer edge was shaped with a jigsaw. Two layers of gesso were applied--one white, one black--after which acrylic paints were used. Sandpaper and a carving tool were used to create a weathered edge. The art was then photographed and the color transparencies used for reproduction in this book."
The text for this one is very sparse and simple:
In the field
were two shepherds
and their sheep.
As the sheep slept,
a star moved across
the night sky.
"The baby" in the story is not named, but the first page contains the text of John 1:14:
And the Word became flesh, and dwelt among us, and we beheld His glory, glory as of the only begotten from the Father, full of grace and truth.
0 comments:
Post a Comment