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By: Dianne White,
on 4/6/2010
A few days ago, I wrote about Bunny Days, Tao Nyeu’s beautiful new picture book.
Today, Jules of 7-Imp has posted a terrific interview with Tao Nyeu, complete with loads of illustrations, sketches, and a peek at what’s up next for Tao!
Enjoy!
By: Dianne White,
on 3/30/2010
I have a new favorite picture book – BUNNY DAYS by Tao Nyeu.
Here’s why. Exquisite Illustrations. Gorgeous design. Frameable dust jacket (!). Surprising Text.
I’m not an artist and while I *wish* I had the language/vocabulary to talk about BUNNY DAYS in a way that does it justice, I don’t.
BUT, what I do have is a deep appreciation for spare lines and meaningful use of color, and a general intuitive sense of “what works” from a design standpoint.
BUNNY DAYS has all this in spades.
Suffice it to say, that I think this book is absolutely Caldecott worthy. (Perhaps Jules over at Seven Imp will do an interview with Tao??? Check here (scroll to the bottom) for a snippet by Jules about BUNNY DAYS.)
In the first chapter, “Muddy Bunnies,” curved lines abound. In the hills, in the repeating shapes of flowers, in the arch of tree trunks. The pallete is soft: “retro” blues, oranges, greens and browns. White is used with intention.
The composition varies – double page spreads, spot illustrations on a sea of white set off by a few carefully placed clouds, and so on.
Bunnies abound, each with a personality of its own. One sleeps by a tree, another basks in the sun, arms spread wide, another leans in to study a small green frog.
I could go on about how the “feel” of each chapter is different because each has its own color palette – distinct from the others and yet complementary - so that one chapter seems to lead easily to the next.
I could talk about the quality of the paper, the whimsy of end papers filled with tumbling bunnies, the dust jacket that is an actual POSTER (!) and the full-color casewrapped (I think that’s the term) illustrated hardcover.
Besides the stellar illustration and overall design, there’s the humorous and original story line.
Want to know more? Drop in here – Tao Nyeu’s website.
Thanks for that interview, Dianne. She’s so talented. I’m sure we’re going to see a lot of her. Imagine if you, as a writer, submitted a manuscript in which bunnies had their tails cut off or got sucked up into a vacuum. The art notes you’d have to write! “There’s no blood, I promise! It’s okay, they don’t suffocate!” Lucky illustrator/author.
When I was talking to the local librarian about the Bunny book, we laughed about those scenes. Another librarian said that she was teaching a class at the local college and that her students didn’t like the book because of those scenes and their “violence.” Yet the librarian said children who she’d read it to LOVED them. Interesting.
I thought those pictures were hilarious! Really. Anyone can see “no animals were harmed in the testing of this product!!”
I haven’t shared the book with my class yet, but I will after Spring break. I’m sure they’ll get a kick out of those scenes in particular. That’s the advantage an author/illustrator has over people like us. You can dream up these kinds of out-of-the-box scenes and actually execute them in a way that makes crazy art notes redundant.
The take away from that interview for me was the bit Tao said about building her story idea from the spot illustration of the bunnies hanging on a line. Even though I’m not an artist, I think this is a great way to brainstorm new story ideas and break away from literal-ways-of-thinking types of writing.