Pish, Posh, Said Hieronymus Bosch - Hardcover

Willard, Nancy

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0152622101 ISBN 13: 9780152622107

Publisher: Harcourt Childrens Books, 1991

Synopsis

Here is an imaginative tale about the unconventional fifteenth-century Flemish painter Hieronymus Bosch, as told by his wildly dissatisfied housekeeper. Caldecott Medalists Leo and Diane Dillon and their son, Lee, depict a most unusual household filled with pickle-winged fish, flying furniture, and other bizarre delights. “From its sumptuous paintings to its gilt frames to its quixotic verse, everything about this exquisitely produced tour de force bespeaks wit and elegance.”--Publishers Weekly

About this title

About the Author:

Nancy Willard (born June 26, 1936) is a novelist, a poet, and a children's writer and occasional illustrator. Her 1981 collection of poems, A Visit to William Blake's Inn, won the Newbery Medal as that year's most distinguished contribution to American children's literature.

Willard was born in Ann Arbor, Michigan, where she later received the B.A. and Ph.D. from the University of Michigan and won five Hopwood Awards for creative writing. She also studied at Stanford University, where she received her M.A.

From School Library Journal:

Grade 3 Up-- One needn't know Bosch's paintings of nightmarish otherworlds to be intrigued by the fantastic cast of characters Willard describes and the Dillons depict--although this visual parody is even more delightful to those familiar with the artist's work. The painter's housekeeper complains of the extreme frustration produced by the hordes of weird creatures that keep her from her proper duties, and she leaves. But she's followed by the lot who clamor for her loving attention , and she returns resigned to an active life with those who need her. Willard's verse has a Seuss-like dash to it, most frequently rhymed couplets with unusual words and even odder references to things such as a "pickle-winged fish." All the words are hand-lettered in an unlikely mixture of upper- and lower-case letters in the same tones of warm brown used to create vignettes on the pages facing the full color scenes. And such illustrations they are! The Dillons' son has cast four winged beasties and intergrated them onto a gilt wood frame with a softly arched top. Inside the artists have painted scenes in the spirit of the 15th-century genius but in a more modern, post-Renaissance fashion. The setting and humans are realistically portrayed in period dress, the artist as a bit of a crackpot and his housekeeper as a young woman fed up with his madness. It's the "beehive in boots" and "three-legged thistles" that infest all parts of these scenes that are based on characters from Bosch's vision of hell. Only now the effect is comic rather than frightening. Once again the artists show their virtuosity, their ability to don the robes of another artistic period or place, and yet play the play in their own fashion. --Kenneth Marantz, Art Education Department, Ohio State University, Columbus
Copyright 1991 Reed Business Information, Inc.

About this edition

• Publisher: Harcourt Childrens Books
• Publication date: 1991
• ISBN 10: 0152622101
• ISBN 13: 9780152622107
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 32
• Illustrator: Dillon Diane, Dillon Leo