Friday, May 18, 2012

Picture books: Classics old and new


The 1955 masterpiece Harold And The Purple Crayon is reissued and Diary Of A Spider shows there is plenty of modern talent too.


Harold and the Purple Crayon by Crockett Johnson was first published in 1955

Harold and the Purple Crayon by Crockett Johnson was first published in 1955 Photo: Crockett Johnson 1955; Copyright renewed by Ruth Krauss 1983
Harold and the Purple Crayon by Crockett Johnson
It is heartening to see so many exciting and original children's books being published at the moment. Yet it's also good to remember some of the pioneers of great children's literature. So well done HarperCollins for deciding to reissue some classics including Harold And The Purple Crayon by Crockett Johnson. The 1955 book was hailed as "a masterpiece" by the late, great Maurice Sendak, who was greatly inspired by the work of Johnson.
Crockett Johnson was the pen name of cartoonist David Jonathan Leisk (1906-1975) who created the comic strip Barnaby. His Harold books, which started with the Purple Crayon, were a successful series, and the first is bursting with ideas and illustrative techniques that have been imitated ceaselessly ever since. Harold's purple pen is magic and whatever he draws comes to life, including the "very hungry moose and deserving porcupine" he brings to life to eat the pies he has drawn. It's a work of stunning, brilliant simplicity about the power of imagination and has worked its way into popular American culture, with theatre and musical productions, a reference in The Simpsons (Homer asks Harold to draw him a can of beer) and a new film adaptation planned.
But excellent children's books are being created in the modern era, too, and among the most engaging picture books recently published is Diary Of A Spider by Doreen Cronin, with illustrations by Harry Bliss. It was first published in America seven years ago and is now published in the UK for the first time.The humour sparkles from the team behind the best-selling Diary Of A Worm. In this book, Grandad Spider passes on to the young eight-legged hero all kinds of wisdom (including that "butterflies taste better with barbecue sauce") and the drawings perfectly complement the text jokes. For example, the entry for April 1: "Went to the park with my sister today. We tried the seesaw. It didn't work." The drawing shows two tiny spiders on a vast seesaw. And show-and-tell in spider school assembly is the spider's old skin. It's a playful and quite delightful book for young readers.

BOOK DETAILS:
Harold And The Purple Crayon by Crockett Johnson (HarperCollins, £6.99)
Diary Of A Spider by Doreen Cronin, with illustrations by Harry Bliss (HarperCollins, £6.99)
The Hueys in New Jumper by Oliver Jeffers (HarperCollins, £10.99)
Small Bunny's Blue Blanket by Tatyana Feeney (Oxford University Press, £11.99)
Harry and the Dinosaurs Go On Holiday by Ian Whybrow and Adrian Reynolds (Puffin, £6.99)

No comments: