Caldecott & Co.: Notes on Books and Pictures - Hardcover

Sendak, Maurice

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0374225982 ISBN 13: 9780374225988

Publisher: Farrar Straus & Giroux, 1988

Synopsis

A collection of the author and illustrator's critical writings is devoted to writers and artists whose work he admires, including Randolph Caldecott, Beatrix Potter, and Walt Disney, and also features several interviews and autobiographical pieces

About this title

Reviews

This seems to be the year of Maurice Sendak. On the heels of Dear Mili comes this slim anthology of his essays and musings on writing and illustrating for children. It reveals a formidable intelligence, and a remarkable degree of empathy with fellow toilers in what is too often regarded as a somewhat lesser field of endeavor: as if writing and drawing for children were a distinctly second-best activity. Without being weighty about it, Sendak shows the degree of imagination, craft and humanity that goes into the best of this work. There are notably generous appreciations of well-known artists like Randolph Caldecott, Beatrix Potter and Jean de Brunhoff, and sharp-eyed essays on Andersen, the "Mother Goose" tradition and the best and worst of Walt Disney. There are also more ephemeral pieces like award acceptances, interviews and brief prefaces to booksthough almost none is without some worthwhile observation. What comes through above all is Sendak's open-hearted admiration for craft and respect for true, ageless imagination. Illustrations not seen by PW.
Copyright 1988 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Sendak's first collection of critical writings has a dual focus. It offers commentary on children's books and their illustration by a knowledgeable, working artist and, in an autobiographical second section that suggests Sendak's development and philosophy, helps us understand the author's own work. Among the illustrators and writers Sendak extols are Randolph Caldecott, George MacDonald, Beatrix Potter, Winsor McCay, Edward Ardizzone, and a handful of contemporary practitioners. Sendak's criticism, whether essay-length or just a few paragraphs, is infused with personal feeling as well as professional judgment and a sound historical sense, and his own contributions to the art of the children's book animates his "appreciations" of others'. Patricia Dooley, Lib. Sch., Univ. of Washington, Seattle
Copyright 1988 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Edition details

• Publisher: Farrar Straus & Giroux
• Publication date: 1988
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0374225982
• ISBN 13: 9780374225988
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 216