I’ve got artwork below today from illustrator and printmaker JooHee Yoon’s first picture book here in the U.S., Beastly Verse, published by Enchanted Lion Books last month. Does anyone else remember when JooHee visited 7-Imp back in 2011 to share some art? It’s exciting to see this book now.
This is a collection of animal poems, many from poets long-gone (Ogden Nash, Hilaire Belloc, Christina Rosetti), with gatefold surprises and Yoon’s distinctive and stylized art, so vivid in its palette that the spreads pop off the page. (You’ll see this below.) Daisy Fried wrote in the New York Times that “[k]ids appreciate the bizarre and off-kilter, and are too often denied it when grown-ups edit for positive messages and sweetness. Hooray for Yoon for countering that.” I love that.
I can also (if you want really detailed reviews) direct you to Betsy Bird’s review of the book here, as well as the post at Brain Pickings (where credit is given to Claudia Zoe Bedrick, founder of Enchanted Lion Books, for being the poetry-lover she is).
Up above, at the very tip-top of this post, is a spread from JooHee’s rendering of James Thurber’s story “The Tiger Who Would Be King,” which Enchanted Lion will publish this September. It’s a sneak-peek at that book today (and its cover), and I thank Claudia for that.
Here are some images from Beastly Verse. Enjoy!
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BEASTLY VERSE. Text and illustration copyright © 2015 by JooHee Yoon. First edition published in 2015 by Enchanted Lion Books, Brooklyn. All images here reproduced by permission of the publisher.
Images from THE TIGER WHO WOULD BE KING reproduced by permission of Enchanted Lion Books.
JooHee’s work is amazing, bright, and smart!
Just beautiful.