Illustrated book

I thought it would be interesting to show these illustrations from Telling Time as we had the artist, Kathryn Shoemaker, as guest artist at the Guild May meeting. She was a very informative speaker and we got some insight into the complications of book illustration. This book begins with a grandmother telling the story of the last Purim celebration she had in Vienna.  The font changes from when she is telling the story to when the rabbi tells the story of Esther from the special scroll. When the story comes back to the grandmother's tale, the slanting dark swastika slashes imply the Nazi threat. The rabbi in his white prayer shawl almost disappears against the snow- was there a miracle and did he get away?  I bought this book for myself as I thought the illustrations were so well done- and I ended up doing a book review for Amazon. Kathryn works in gouache as the colours remain the same on the palette for the next session. She works larger than the finished size will be  and does an incredible amount of research. I think book illustration is important and quality art work is important for children. Too many books are kind of cheap and cartoon-y. ---Not that there aren't good cartoons too - but I think it is a good idea to try to expose children to quality art work. Most people know the classics but it is good to see that work in the best tradition of children's book illustration is being made today too.