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In his painting Juana la Loca, Spanish painter Francisco Pradilla Ortiz (1848-1921) told an epic story worthy of a best-selling novel or a Hollywood movie:


“It is chronicled that Juana, wife of Philip de Borgogne and mother of Charles the Fifth, being distractedly in love with her handsome husband—a reputed flirt—became possessed of a superhuman jealousy which over-balanced her intellect.

“Philip meantime ‘shuffles off the mortal coil,’ and his unhappy Queen Juana, in a frenzy of grief, insists on accompanying the corpse to its last resting place, situated at the furthest extremity of Spain, Granada—then the burial place of the royalties—being five hundred miles from Burgos, where Philip died.

“The route lay through a wild, uninhabited country, utterly impracticable to vehicles of any description, so that the Court, the prelates, nobles, and knights, who made up the funeral procession, had a long trudge, her Majesty leading, behind the coffin.

“The pathetic scene given us by the painter takes place at the close of a bitter December day when three months had already been passed on the road; footsore and perishing from cold, the Court mourners spied the walls of a convent, hailing the prospect of hospitality contained therein with delight.

“The Queen, who felt neither cold nor fatigue, acceded to the request of her people, and the bier was taken into the church of the convent, the Queen in close attendance on her treasure, when suddenly a shriek was heard from the horrified Queen, who screamed ‘Out, out of here this instant!’

“Her majesty had unwittingly come into the camp of the enemy. The inhabitants of the convent were not —as supposed — friars, but nuns.

“The spectral figure of the worn-out queen, in whose gaze, fixed upon the coffin, can be detected the wanderings of a mind shaken by the mad jealousy which still consumes her, the coffin itself, illuminated by the light of a miserable campfire, the smoke of which is utilized by the painter to detach the sombre centre-figure, the well-disposed groups which crouch around, half dead with exhaustion, who had been so ruthlessly deprived of a warm shelter by the unconscious cruelty of an afflicted woman, are all remarkably finely rendered.

“The dawning light which illumines feebly the dreary scene—including the obnoxious convent—all combine to render the painting a drama in all save in theatrical accessories and get-up.”
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Quoted from International Studio, 1901.
Image from Wikipedia: Juana la Loca1877
Wikipedia on Francisco Pradilla Ortiz (teacher of Sorolla)

i love dawing your stuff..they are excellent... you are the best drawer i have ever seen.

Hello everyone, here is a picture I drew for David Lasky, who requested it in the last set of comments. I can't claim that it took a long time.

As a kid growing up in Pittsburgh, Jewell Parker Rhodes was the one who always had a book in her hands. Books were better than dolls, she writes on her website, better than food. It’s no wonder  she wrote her first children’s book while still in  elementary school. She illustrated it and shared it with her classmates. The magic of creating a story herself ignited  a lifelong passion for writing.

Rhodes went on to write five acclaimed novels for adults, a memoir and two writing guides. She became the Piper Endowed Chair of the Virginia G. Piper Center for Creative Writing at Arizona State University. But she was missing something. When Hurricane Katrina hit, a question haunted her: What about the children?  Three years later, with Hurricane Ike threatening New Orleans again, she heard a voice: “They say I was born with a caul, a skin netting covering my face like a glove . . .”

That voice of her main character Lanesha inspired Rhodes’ debut middle-grade novel, Ninth Ward (Little, Brown Books for Young Readers). The book has won big praise from a Publisher’s Weekly starred review to a Coretta Scott King Author Honor Award and Parents Choice Foundation Gold Award. ”My entire life has been a journey on the way to writing Ninth Ward,” Rhodes shares on her website. “ Grandmother, my community, and teachers and librarians showered me with guidance and love. They all gave birth to Lanesha. A girl with hope, a big heart, and a firm belief that always, eventually, ‘The universe shines down with love.’”

We are proud to celebrate Jewell Parker Rhodes on Day 26:

You’re an award-winning author of novels for adults. On your website, you share that writing a children’s book is a dream come true for you. Why?

My childhood was difficult.  Books and my Grandmother’s “porch stories” stirred my imagination and kept my spirit alive.  I always wanted to write a story that perhaps, one day, would inspire a child when they needed it most.

You wrote your first children’s book at eight years old. Here’s what you say about it on your website:  “It was a very thin book, bound in yellow construction paper, and illustrated by me!” How did that early experience put you on the path to publication?

My teacher brilliantly arranged for me to read my story, “The Last Scream,” to my elementary school classmates.  It was an amazing experience to see, feel, and hear my classmates’ responses.  I had always valued the connection and communication I felt with books and with different authors, but reading to my classmates, I felt the power of my own storytelling.

It took four decades for you to write your next children’s book — the middle-grade novel, Ninth Ward. Why was now the right time to write for kids? Why did the story of Hurricane Katrina call to you?

As an adult novelist, I’ve been writing about Louisiana for decades. I feel such a “calling” for the landscape, the music, and the food. When Hurricane Katrina hit, I worried and wondered about the children. But it wasn’t until 2008, when Hurricane Ike was bearing down upon New Orleans, that I thought, “Oh no, not again.” This time, Lanesha’s voice popped inside my head. I needed her voice to begin writing.

You share a parallel between your life and your m