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Most people living in large towns and cities probably give little thought to soil. Why should they? At a first glance, much of the ground in towns and cities is sealed with concrete, asphalt and bricks, and most city-dwellers have little reason to have contact with soil. To most, soil in cities is simply dirt. But soil is actually in abundance in cities: it lays beneath the many small gardens, flower beds, road and railway verges, parks, sports grounds, school playing fields, and allotments of the city, where it plays many under appreciated roles.
Mike Curato’s Little Elliot books are fast becoming a favorite of children and parents alike. The author and illustrator has created a little polka-dotted elephant with a big heart. The Little Elliot series — Little Elliot, Big City; Little Elliot, Big Family; and Little Elliot, Big Fun — is heavily influenced by the zeitgeist of the1930s and conveys wonderful messages about family and friendship.
Mike Curato and MerryMakers president Clair Frederick joined StoryMakers host Rocco Staino to talk about the series of Little Elliot books and the huggably soft plush products created by the toy maker. Little Elliot is one of the newest members of the MerryMakers family.
We’re giving away three (3) signed copies of Mike Curato’s Little Elliot, Big City; Little Elliot, Big Family; and a MerryMakers plush toy. Enter now!
Little Elliot, Big City
Written and illustrated by Mike Curato
Published by Henry Holt and Co. Books for Young Readers
Amid the hustle and bustle of the big city, the big crowds and bigger buildings, Little Elliot leads a quiet life. In spite of the challenges he faces, Elliot finds many wonderful things to enjoy like cupcakes And when his problems seem insurmountable, Elliot discovers something even sweeter a friend.
Little Elliot, Big Family
Written and illustrated by Mike Curato
Published by Henry Holt and Co. Books for Young Readers
When Mouse heads off to a family reunion, Little Elliot decides go for a walk. As he explores each busy street, he sees families in all shapes and sizes. In a city of millions, Little Elliot feels very much alone-until he finds he has a family of his own.
Little Elliot, Big Fun Written and illustrated by Mike Curato
Published by Henry Holt and Co. Books for Young Readers
Available August 2016
In this third story of Little Elliot and Mouse, the friends head off in search of adventure . . . and lots of fun. Little Elliot, the polka-dotted elephant, and his friend Mouse go to the amusement park to see the sights and ride the rides water chutes, roller coasters, carousels, and more. But Elliot isn’t having much fun the rides are too wet, too fast, too dizzy, and just plain too scary until Mouse figures out a way to help him overcome his fears. Together, Mouse and Little Elliot can do anything.
Worm Loves Worm Written by J. J. Austrian with illustrations by Mike Curato
Published by Balzer + Bray
Perfect for fans of And Tango Makes Three and The Sissy Duckling, this irresistible picture book is a celebration of love in all its splendid forms from debut author J. J. Austrian and the acclaimed author-illustrator of Little Elliot, Big City, Mike Curato. You are cordially invited to celebrate the wedding of a worm . . . and a worm. When a worm meets a special worm and they fall in love, you know what happens next: They get married but their friends want to know who will wear the dress? And who will wear the tux? The answer is: It doesn’t matter. Because Worm loves Worm.
Mike loves drawing and writing almost as much as he loves cupcakes and ice cream (and that’s a LOT!). He is the author and illustrator of everyone’s favorite polka-dotted elephant, Little Elliot. His debut title, Little Elliot, Big City, released in 2014 to critical acclaim, has won several awards, and is being translated into ten languages. The follow up book, Little Elliot, Big Family, was just released in October, 2015, and has received several starred reviews. At least two more Little Elliot books are forthcoming. Meanwhile, Mike had the pleasure of illustrating Worm Loves Worm by J.J. Austrian, which is available January 5, 2016. He is also working on several other projects, including his first graphic novel. Mike lives and works in Brooklyn, NY.
At the height of his career - during the time he was writing Great Expectations and Our Mutual Friend - Dickens wrote a series of sketches, mostly set in London, which he collected as The Uncommercial Traveller. The persona of the 'Uncommercial' allowed Dickens to unify his series of occasional articles by linking them through a shared narrator.
Writers are always looking for things to enhance our creative output. We worry about whether we write best early in the morning or late at night; we fret about whether reading other novels while working on our own is inspiring or distracting; we deliberate over getting our admin out of the way first, or leaving it till afterwards... But what about location? Which is more inspiring - the city or the countryside?
My writer friend loves the garret. She loves the idea of an eyrie high above the city, far enough away from the madding crowds that she feels slightly apart, yet aware that all of life is unfolding in the streets below. She feels it’s important to be able to observe things from a distance – to witness the rest of life passing by. My friend can’t imagine anything worse than writing in the countryside. Nothing happens there, she says.
But perhaps you just need to look a little closer. I spent some time writing from a clapped-out static caravan that was quietly disintegrating in a field of weeds. There was certainly a loneliness about it. But once the quiet descends it becomes apparent that life is ever-changing here, too.
In my caravan there were spiders everywhere. The nettles grew tall, right up to the window sills, and the grass around the deck was chest-high and thrumming with insect life. At night I stood outside and saw a million stars in the huge sky and I began to be aware of life passing on both a very small and a very large scale.
Perhaps both the city and the countryside can offer the same sort of inspiration - and the same opportunity to sit slightly apart from life a little, to observe it. Perhaps it’s this awareness of the impermanence of life that inspires us to want to capture some of it and keep it safe between the pages of a book, like a pressed flower.
0 Comments on Are You a Town or Country Writer? - Heather Dyer as of 8/3/2014 2:14:00 AM
Book: Abuelo Author: Arthur Dorros
Illustrator: Raul Colon
Pages: 32
Age Range: 4-8
Abuelo by Arthur Dorros, illustrated by Raul Colon, is a quiet picture book about the relationship between a boy and his grandfather. They live somewhere in the country, where they ride horses, camp, and encounter wildlife. Later, the boy and his parents move to the city, leaving Abuelo behind. However, the skills that Abuelo has taught the boy (such as standing his ground) come in handy in his new life, too.
Dorros blends English and Spanish words in the text, including translations for key words and phrases. Like this:
"We would ride into the clouds,
with the sky, "el cielo,"
wrapped around us."
and this:
At night, we could see forever.
"Mira", look, he would tell me,
reaching his hands to the stars."
Even after the boy moves to the city, he still includes the Spanish translations for the things that he sees, though he perhaps does this a bit less.
Colon's watercolor and colored pencil illustrations are warm and deeply textured, cast in desert palettes of browns, grays, and sage green. There's a nostalgic feel to the pictures - this is a book that could be set now or 40 years ago. My favorite illustration is that one at the end of the book. The boy rides a bike, with the shadow of his Abuelo riding alongside him. I can't describe it, but Colon captured this perfectly.
Abuelo is about family and culture, moving away and growing up. It's a book that introduces readers to a different environment, while touching on universal truths (the fear of getting lost, the need to stand up to bullies). Abuelo is well worth a look, particularly for library purchase.
Publisher: HarperCollins (@HarperChildrens)
Publication Date: April 22, 2014
Source of Book: Review copy from the publisher
FTC Required Disclosure:
This site is an Amazon affiliate, and purchases made through Amazon links (including linked book covers) may result in my receiving a small commission (at no additional cost to you).
When Highlights asked me to make a What's Wrong? of a City Market I could think of no other than Philadelphia's Italian Market. I've only been there once in my life, during the off peak time, but I did a lot of research (see below) to make it look authentic minus the trash and fire barrels. If you've ever been to the Italian Market in South Philadelphia, or saw the scene in Rocky when he is jogging through it (starts at :23) one thing comes to mind, "this is so beautiful and yet, totally disgusting." Honestly, it smells, there's trash all over the place, and most of the merchants are rude. Ah, Philadelphia! City of Brotherly Love. That's what makes this city so great- everyone wears their hearts on their sleeve and we don't apologize for it or care if you're offended- much like you would speak to a close family member. Ha!
I finished this piece the week my Dad went into the hospital before he passed away. Good friend and designer, Drew Phillips, helped me out with doing some flat coloring for me. All I had to do was make some adjustments, then add textures and shadows. Thanks, Drew!
Things to look for in this piece: Adrian Balboa ironing a sock, myself, wife and daughter driving a row home, and my personal favorite, a girl mouse being serenaded with her concerned Father reacting in a nearby window.
The original sketch is below. One thing I was sad to see go was Adrian Balboa carrying Rocky's two turtles known as Cuff and Link.
The scene was based loosely on these photos:
Make sure to get a Highlights subscription for the kids in your life. It really is the greatest magazine on earth.
0 Comments on What's Wrong, Italian Market? as of 7/16/2013 10:48:00 AM
In The Metaphysics of Morals (1797), Immanuel Kant gives the standard eighteenth-century line on opium. Its “dreamy euphoria,” he declares, makes one “taciturn, withdrawn, and uncommunicative,” and it is “therefore… permitted only as a medicine.” Eighty-five years later, in The Gay Science (1882), Friedrich Nietzsche too discusses drugs, but he has a very different story to tell. “Who will ever relate the whole history of narcotica?” he asks pointedly. “It is almost the history of ‘culture’, of so-called high culture.” What caused this seismic shift in attitude? How did opium, in less than a century, pass from a drug understood primarily as a medicine to a drug used and abused recreationally, not just in “high culture”, but across the social strata?
The short answer is Thomas De Quincey. In his Confessions of an English Opium-Eater, first published in the London Magazine for September and October 1821, he transformed our perception of drugs. De Quincey invented recreational drug-taking, not because he was the first to swallow opiates for non-medical reasons (he was hardly that), but because he was the first to commemorate his drug experience in a compelling narrative that was consciously aimed at — and consumed by — a broad commercial audience. Further, in knitting together intellectualism, unconventionality, drugs, and the city, De Quincey mapped in the counter-cultural figure of the bohemian. He was also the first flâneur, high and anonymous, graceful and detached, strolling through crowded urban sprawls trying to decipher the spectacles, faces, and memories that reside there. Most strikingly, as the self-proclaimed “Pope” of “the true church on the subject of opium,” he initiated the tradition of the literature of intoxication with his portrait of the addict as a young man. De Quincey is the first modern artist, at once prophet and exile, riven by a drug that both inspired and eviscerated him.
The Confessions warned some early readers off opium, as De Quincey claimed he intended. “Better, a thousand times better, die than have anything to do with such a Devil’s own drug!” Thomas Carlyle commented after reading the work, while De Quincey’s erstwhile friend and fellow opium addict Samuel Taylor Coleridge insisted that he read the Confessions with “unutterablesorrow…The writer with morbid vanity, makes a boast of what wasmy misfortune.” But for many other readers, De Quincey’s account of opium was an invitation to experimentation — his drugged highs almost irresistible, and the gothic gloom of his lows even more so. Within months of publication, John Wilson, De Quincey’s closest friend and the lead writer for the powerful Blackwood’s Magazine, heard alarming reports of people recklessly attempting to emulate De Quincey’s drug experiences. “Pray, is it true…that your Confessions have caused about fifty unintentional suicides?” he inquires in a flamboyant Blackwood’s sketch. “I should think not,” the Opium Eater replies indignantly. “I have read of six only; and they rested on no solid foundation.”
Others, however, did not find the situation funny. One doctor recorded a sharp increase in the number of people overdosing on opium “in consequence of a little book that has been published by a man of literature.” The authors of The Family Oracle of Health (1824) were even angrier. “The use of opium has been recently much increased by a wild, absurd, and romancing production, called the Confessions of an English Opium-Eater,” they declared. “We observe, that at some late inquests this wicked book has been severely censured, as the source of misery and torment, and even of suicide itself, to those who have been seduced to take opium by its lying stories about celestial dreams, and similar nonsense.”
De Quincey was characteristically divided on the influence of his Confessions. In the work itself he states that his primary objective is to reveal the powers of the drug: opium is “the true hero of the tale,” and “the legitimate centre on which the interest revolves.” Yet in Suspiria de Profundis (1845), the sequel to the Confessions, he maintains that its “true hero” is, not opium, but the powers of his imaginative — and especially of his dreaming — mind. Elsewhere, De Quincey denied the charges that his writings had encouraged drug abuse: “Teach opium-eating! – Did I teach wine drinking? Did I reveal the mystery of sleeping? Did I inaugurate the infirmity of laughter? . . . My faith is – that no man is likely to adopt opium or to lay it aside in consequence of anything he may read in a book.” In still other instances De Quincey regarded his drug habit as a source of amusement. “Since leaving off opium,” he noted wryly, “I take a great deal too much of it for my health.” More commonly, though, he was horrified by the damage it was inflicting. “It is as if ivory carvings and elaborate fretwork and fair enamelling should be found with worms and ashes amongst coffins and the wrecks of some forgotten life,” he wrote in the midst of one of his many attempts to abjure the drug.
De Quincey’s account of his opiated experiences has left on indelible print on the literature of addiction, and modern commentators continue to grapple with his legacy, though there is no agreement on whether he should be blamed, or absolved, or lauded. In Romancing Opiates (2006), Theodore Dalrymple lambasts him. “In modern society the main cause of drug addiction…is a literary tradition of romantic claptrap, started by Coleridge and De Quincey, and continued without serious interruption ever since,” he asserts. “This claptrap is the main source of popular and medical misconceptions on the subject.” Will Self, however, argues vigorously against such a view. “The truth is that books like…De Quincey’s Confessions no more create drug addicts than video nasties engender prepubescent murderers,” he declares in Junk Mail (1995). “Rather, culture, in this wider sense, is a hall of mirrors in which cause and effect endlessly reciprocate one another in a diminuendo that tends ineluctably towards the trivial.”
Ann Marlowe takes yet another position on the “brilliant, unsurpassed Confessions.” “Ever since I read De Quincey in my early teens,” she writes in How to Stop Time (1999), “I’d planned to try opium,” a far more direct account of “cause and effect” than Self’s halls of opium smoke and mirrors. Yet Marlowe and Self agree that they were both drawn to the drug because of its close association with intellectualism and insight, for both “hoped to pass through the portals of dope” into the “honoured company” of Coleridge and De Quincey. Such reasoning, Marlowe recognizes later, is “the sorriest cliche,” or what Dalrymple would call “claptrap”. But these accounts make plain that De Quincey’s potent memorialization of his drug experience has proven at least as seductive as the drug itself. His Confessions loosed the recreational genies from the medicine bottle and made opiates for the masses. De Quincey was lucky. The drug battered him, but it never finally defeated his creativity or his resolve. Many have not been that fortunate. Diagnosed at aged twenty with an opiate addiction, Self was “appalled to discover that I was not a famous underground writer. Indeed, far from being a writer at all, I was simply underground.”
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Subscribe to only literature articles articles on the OUPblog via emailRSS Image Credits: (1) Thomas de Quincey – Project Gutenberg eText 19222 via Wikimedia Commons. (2) “A New Vice: Opium Dens in France”, cover of Le Petit Journal, 5 July 1903. via Wikimedia Commons. (3) Cropped screenshot from the film trailer Confessions of an Opium Eater (1962) via Wikimedia Commons
It has been a long time since I submitted anything to Illustration Friday so I thought I'd post these three Highlights illustrations for the snow theme this week. Have fun finding all of the Silly/Wrong things!
Hey, thanks for the mention. I'll do the same, Mary Lee. I love that first line "They''ve made their home, in a commercial zone." How many stories every spring arise because of the ducks and geese. We complain about them year round, yet most of the time, people protect them at this miracle time. Your poem captures just that moment beautifully.
Mary Lee, what an interesting predicament for the goose and gander. I loved this line, "The vigilant gander / threatening human bystanders." Thanks for continuing to shout poetry and causing me to want to join in the fun. I enjoy being on the lookout for poetry.
Thanks for letting me know about other blogs joining in the celebration of National Poetry Month. I'm trying to add them to the sidebar of my blog.
One of my favorite beverages these days is my homemade chai. I add warmed vanilla coffee creamer to any tea (usually Tahitian vanilla hazelnut) and I sit back and relax. I’m sipping a cup now as I write this post which should have gone up yesterday! I was so looking forward to participating in the Salute to City Reading that I’m still going to, even though I’m a day late. The day’s posts can all be found on Colleen Mondor’s blog, Chasing Ray. BTW, Colleen also contributes to GuysLitWire where they have announced their holiday book fair and will be teaming up with Ballou High School in Washington D.C. Here’s a short story on the school.
I couldn’t believe the timing of the request for me to participate in this project because of where it takes place. Glitzis written by Philana Marie Boles. Her main character, Ann Michelle, is a pretty average high school Black girl. She attends a Catholic high school, lives with her grandmother, loves rap music and regrets that her life is so middle class. She’s a ‘wannabe’. Enter Raq, the hard core tattooed chica in whom few people see any good. But, Ann Michelle does. Ann Michelle gives into peer pressure big time, following along with all of Raq’s crazy schemes.
And, the story works because it’s set in Toledo, Ohio. C’mon, don’t you expect a main character from Tooddle-ee-doo to be naïve? A bit slow and easy to influence?
The city’s proximity to Detroit takes our characters into a most precarious adventure.
Toledo? Yep. Toledo is my hometown and when I saw that a new, young Black author had set a book in Toledo, I had to read it. I grinned when I found that the main character attended an all girl Catholic high school, as I had as well. The streets, restaurants and stores took me back home and developed a special relationship between the book and this reader.
While books can take us places, sometimes we like them because they take us home. <sipping>
Vicky Alvear Shecter said, on 11/17/2011 6:07:00 PM
I met Philana last year at a book fest–one of the nicest, warmest people I’ve ever met. I really enjoyed GLITZ and am surprised it’s not getting more recognition.
That's really cool! I waited for the final version and it turned out great. So many details to sicover!:)You should make a "Busy Picture book" one day, where you have to find things or persons!
A loved one flew to Amsterdam today. By coincidence I saw these road markings (left) outside my studio that resemble the flag of Amsterdam (right). Click to enlarge.
Here are the cutouts I designed and cut out of large pieces of cardboard. This years VBS theme is New York ‘Big Apple Adventure’. If i have time tomorrow I might do a large apple cutout and maybe a traffic light.
Spent most of yesterday at my publisher signing more books (thanks all who have ordered, much appreciated). This is an idealized version of the town, as per usual city planner always stop short of real excellence when planning a town. And remember theres still time to get a signed and doodled version of my book (before the 1 of June), you can order it directly from the link on the top left.
6 Comments on Entering Strängnäs from the north, last added: 5/20/2011
Somehow I recently came across your illustrations and I just want to say THANKYOU! you have given me the inspiration needed for my current university architectural assignment from this illustration and many more! Please keep up the beautiful, inspiring work as it's helping me and I'm sure many others around the world! I may just have to order your book :) Thanks, Chloe, Australia
oh boy oh boy--- I cannot wait to get the book. I'm such a fan Mattias!! I recently commented in an interview that your work makes me feel like a hack! You can see it here: http://bit.ly/h38G9t
oh boy oh boy--- I cannot wait to get the book. I'm such a fan Mattias!! I recently commented in an interview that your work makes me feel like a hack! You can see it here: http://bit.ly/h38G9t
Good luck with the book!!!
Sanatorium said, on 5/19/2011 1:10:00 PM
This actually looks more like the southwest (bad) parts of Strängnäs.
Hi everyone! I’m so excited my kid’s book I illustrated ‘Hear My Prayer’, by Lee Bennett Hopkins is finally available in stores. The stores websites have previews of what the book looks like inside. Here’s another preview of one of my favorite illustrated spreads from the book, which was a […]
This image has some clues to my past, my father worked for "the Telephone company" (it used to be a monopoly) he sometime had to put on a special kinds of boots in order to climb telephone poles.
7 Comments on Doing repairs on the brink of the digital revolution, last added: 1/13/2011
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Abuelo by Arthur Dorros, illustrated by Raul Colon, is a quiet picture book about the relationship between a boy and his grandfather. They live somewhere in the country, where they ride horses, camp, and encounter wildlife. Later, the boy and his parents move to the city, leaving Abuelo behind. However, the skills that Abuelo has taught the boy (such as standing his ground) come in handy in his new life, too. 
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Meravigliose illustrazioni!!!!!