Book Recommendations — Children's

A few years ago, a family member complained that she couldn’t find well-illustrated children’s books. Just a few months later, I happened to see a wonderful exhibit— the Magic Pencil—at the British Library in London. The exhibit was devoted to thirteen contemporary UK children’s book illustrators. Quentin Blake selected the illustrators for the exhibition, and he was the only illustrator with whom I was familiar before seeing the show. Since then, I’ve bought books by all of the featured illustrators, and I haven't been disappointed. Over the next few weeks, I thought I’d post links to work by each of them.

The first artist is Angela Barrett. She had two very different types of illustrations in the exhibition—some from Josephine Poole’s re-telling of Snow White that were dark and dreamlike paintings, and some from Candide or Optimism that were very detailed ink and paper drawings.

Snow White is out of print (but still available from some Marketplace sellers on Amazon.) Poole and Barrett, though, have also collaborated on a few other books, including Joan of Arc and Anne Frank.











Barrett also has a new book coming out in November—a new version of Beauty and the Beast with author Max Eilenberg. I've only seen one of the inside illustrations, but it's beautiful, and a striking contrast to the Disney version.