How to use this Page

Today is Easter Sunday for the majority of the world’s 2.4 billion Christians (most Orthodox Christians will wait until May 1st to celebrate the resurrection of Jesus). After the long penitential season of Lent, Christians are greeting each other with joyful exclamations of “He is risen,” and hearing in glad response, “He is risen indeed, hallelujah!”

The post The God-man resurrected: a philosophical problem for the Incarnation appeared first on OUPblog.

Add a Comment

Read more »

Add a Comment

A Tale for Easter

By Tasha Tudor

 

Softly tinted trademark drawings, enhanced by a dreamlike quality, are the hallmarks of this classic 1941 Tasha Tudor tale of a young girl’s run up to Easter.

Ms. Tudor, known for her pastels celebrating the joys of her rural childhood, beginning with her 1938 Pumpkin Moonshine, with its family-centered celebrations, and the winning of two Caldecott Honor book designations for Mother Goose  in 1945 and 1 is One in 1956, continues here, with family-centered freshness in A Tale for Easter.

Ms. Tudor spent her life as an artist celebrating the wildlife, landscape and traditions of her own childhood.

And through her ninety some books, she has shared it with generations of readers that perhaps, by osmosis, long to soak in a  simpler time and place that this artist captures with both sweetness and an unashamed sentiment.

In A Tale for Easter, amid a pastoral setting, young readers may peek at a tousle-haired young lady’s gently soothing interactions with nearby chickens that are given a special request for the day before Easter:

 

 

              On Saturday, you go and ask

              the chickens to lay you

              plenty of Easter eggs.

 

 

And there are hints of traditions that are part of the preparation for Easter that signals its nearness:

 

              It is only when Good Friday

              comes, and you have hot cross

              buns for tea, that you know for

              certain Easter will be the day after 

              tomorrow.

 

There is a childlike happiness and quiet calm in this young lady’s unfettered and innocent view of the burgeoning new life that surrounds author, Tasha Tudor’s look here at spring, and the holy day ahead.  

My very favorite part is the dreamlike sequence in which the young girl has the “loveliest of dreams,” with a wee fawn conveying her lightly on a springtime journey, taking in looks at leaping lambs, restful rabbits, gamboling ducks, and a host of tinted yellow, spring blossoming flowers.

If this was indeed what Tasha Tudor’s rural New Hampshire childhood was like in 1941, perhaps we need to allow our own children an imaginative picture book look back to a simpler time when the arrival of spring, its celebrations of new life abounding in nature, and the family traditions surrounding the observing of holy days, may be looked at again with the fresh eyes of a new generation of readers.

It’s a classic Easter read not to be missed.

 

 

Add a Comment

The phrase “moveable feast,” while popularized by Ernest Hemingway’s memoir, refers primarily to the holidays surrounding Passover and Easter. Although “Easter” is not a biblical word, Passover is a major holiday in the Jewish calendar. The origins of the festival, while disputed among scholars, are narrated in the biblical texts in Exodus 12–13

The post When’s Easter? appeared first on OUPblog.

Add a Comment

The Night Before Easter

By Natasha Wing; illustrated by Kathy Couri

 

 

  ’Twas the night before Easter, just before dawn

  not a creature was stirring out on the lawn

    Our baskets were set on the table with care,

  in hopes that the Easter Bunny soon would be there…

 

 

Eves of holidays are usually fraught with excitement, expectation and little sleep for kids or parents.

It’s the waiting, the wondering, the watching and the wishful thinking of what the dawn will bring.

And with Easter, it’s the arrival of the Easter Bunny with his Willy Wonka-like treasure trove of brimming baskets filled with sweets, such as the traditional jelly beans, marshmallow chicks, dyed eggs and, of course, the centerpiece chocolate rabbit.

Natasha Wing’s “Night Before” books are a fun rhyming read to the familiar cadence of “The Night Before Christmas” by Clement Clarke Moore. It takes young readers on a prequel of the events that will envelop them come Easter morning.

Here, farm kids along with night capped raccoons, frogs, red foxes, lady bugs and a mouse or two, are all asleep, awaiting the arrival of the Easter Bunny when:

 

         Then out in the barn

       the hens made such a clatter,

         I sprang from my bed

       to see what was the matter.

 

The matter is the “…big fuzzy rabbit with a crook in his ear.” And, this yearly Easter delivery bunny has a yellow chick ( if I may clarify; a baby chicken) in tow, that assists this hare with a flair for conveying confectionary delights:

 

          His soft fur was spotless

          from his head to his toe;

         his vest was all checkered;

         his tie in a bow.

 

That’s exactly how I had him pegged in my imagination when I was young; nattily dressed for his annual foray with “…his tail like cotton; his nose like a berry.”

Looks like a raspberry to me!

And not to be outdone by “chocolates and striped lollipops, the Easter Bunny has one last egg treasure hunt drop off delivery before he hops away:

 

 

             He carefully hid them

             on couches and chairs,

             the mantel, the bookshelf,

             and under the stairs.

 

 

Plus, the Easter Bunny even leaves a parting note for young readers, different from the called out refrain of Saint Nicholas, as this hare in a tear, hippity hops on to his next delivery:

 

           Happy Easter to all –

           and to all a great day!

 

Kathy Couri’s inviting depiction of a farm with red barn, replete with a cozy, comfy, and Victorian pastel cottage, complete with fish scale accents, can be seen on the cusp of spring’s most famous harbinger since the groundhog!

It’s the perfect invitational abode for a visit from the Easter Bunny.

And, Natasha Wing’s The Night Before Easter is the perfect pre bedtime read to calm kids, awaiting his arrival!

Add a Comment

As tomorrow is good Friday and the start of the Easter break I wanted to post some more Easter designs before the holiday. All these designs come from John Lewis and feature on cards, gift bags, and food gift packaging. All the designs can be seen online and in stores now.

Add a Comment

The Egg Tree

By Katherine Milhous

 

This classic Easter tale and winner of the Caldecott Award for best picture book in 1951, still holds up over time.

This charming tale of the emergence of a Pennsylvania Dutch Easter tradition, its retelling on a Red Hill Pennsylvania farm, and the beginnings of a family tradition spreading from a small table top tree filled with decorated eggs, to one that might have rivaled the size of the Christmas tree in Rockefeller Center, will have your young ones saying, “Can we do that at our house?”

That’s just what happened to my now grown  girls after we read this, oh some thirty years back.

They clamored for the egg tree, post read, and it initially started as a small one tucked in a corner of the dining room with decorated eggs and beribboned in yellow, pink and lavender.

Now, it has morphed into egg filled quince branches  with gently pale pink flowers that time their bloom just in time for Easter.

The painted egg scenes in our collection have grown exponentially, and those eggs are quite the stand alone memory book, when surveyed as a whole on the branches.

And, it all started with a picture book called The Egg Tree by Katherine Milhous,  chronicling the Easter visit of young Katy  Carl and cousins, visiting their grandma’s country farm.

Kids will cotton to the idea of spreading flower petals on the lawn to attract the Easter Bunny, who happens to wander by as a real life hare, so the grand egg hunt can commence.

And, as always, with young ones, it’s a mad rush to see who can gather the most eggs. And, they are consumable ones.

Young Katy, with nary an egg in her grasp, wanders up to the attic in search of secreted ones, and there, in a lined hat is a collection of colored and painted eggs that almost rival in numbers, Carl’s swiftly scavenged collection.

And, with Katy’s discovery, grandma is happy to introduce a new generation to the art of painted eggs designs, that find their way on Easter morning, to decorations on a small tree’s branches.

Katherine Milhous has suffused her art here with softer shades of brown, blue, orange and yellow, as grandma introduces the children to the traditional Pennsylvania Dutch symbols used on the eggs, such as The Bright Morning Star, The Deer on the Mountain, The Cooing Dove, The Pomegranate, and picture book’s grandly glorious cover picture that is The Horn Blowing Rooster.

The borders that surround Ms. Milhous’s narrative are artistically Pennsylvania Dutch in feel as well.

And, most young readers will surely identify with young Katy who falls behind in the egg gathering competition count at the hunt’s outset as she is outpaced by Carl.

Yet, she gains a far more wonderful accolade from her grandma as Katy’s discovery of the stored away and painted attic eggs are a reminder of a treasured tradition that winds up jump starting it anew for another generation of children when her grandma comments:

 

     Katy may not have found the most

     eggs; she found the most beautiful

     eggs.

 

The pace and pulse of The Egg Tree is just far enough out of the frenetic feed of today’s kids, as to make it a soothing and satisfying read. The egg decorating commences with each child contributing their own artistic coloration and art to the eggs that fill the tree’s branches.

And, I love the grandmother’s gentle reminder after the initial egg decorating on Easter is complete. The rest is held in abeyance till the morrow with the simple declarative lines that say what is beautifully inferred with her “no work” dictum:

 

           Today we celebrate Easter.

 

Please let your young readers begin their own Easter egg tree tradition with the reading of this classic Caldecott winner.

But, don’t be surprised if your small table top tree continues to morph over the years into a tree where, as in the book, neighbors pop in to see and contribute to its decor.

Traditions, like those begun and enhanced by the reading of The Egg Tree, are what bind faith and family together even in 2016, some sixty-six years after its publication!

And, classic picture books and traditions they engender through continued readings, do stand up to the test of time, and perhaps they number among those many wonderful small things that kids may come to count on in times of unsettled uncertainty in the world of childhood.

Traditions are things that remain the same, providing continuity amid the changing landscape of life, and are predictably comforting to young readers, even when they are something so small, or big, as an egg tree.

The Egg Tree, in both book and branch form, lives and… thrives!

 

 

Add a Comment

This Friday sees the start of the Easter holiday and I wanted to post a few designs to get in the mood. These designs were spotted at Paperchase and feature a cute rabbit and floral pattern on cards, gift bags and gifts. There are also some exclusive card designs and a selection from other publishers such as the bold and fun label Sooshichacha.

Add a Comment

Easter

By Jan Pienkowski

 

 

This 1989 Easter picture book classic is a perfect fit for families that would like the opportunity to share with their young readers, the events of Holy Week, beginning with the procession on Palm Sunday, through the successive solemn events that unfold, with their culmination in the joy of Easter Sunday.

Taken from the King James version of the Bible, Jan Pienkowski,  an emigre from the ravages of World War II in Poland, resided variously in Bavaria and Italy before coming to England, where his artistic skills at Kings College, Cambridge, emerged.

He is twice a recipient of the coveted Kate Greenaway Medal for illustration.

In Easter, Jan uses his keen insights culled from a lifetime of observing humanity, and  hones his craft into his own visual viewpoint of this remarkable and classically unique take on a religious weeklong journey at the heart of Christianity.

And, Jan has as his instrument of telling, his trade mark black silhouetted figures outlining with their depth of profound poignancy and passion, a breathtaking look at the powerful pull of the journey taking the Christ from the hosannas of Palm Sunday, through seeming defeat and death, to glorious resurrection on Easter morning.

The praise heaped on this book from newspaper reviews to publishing critiques is uniformly high.

Here are but a few:

 

             A memorable, dramatic, reverent

             presentation.

                                Kirkus starred review

 

 

             The glory of the presentation is

             matched by the exquisite illus-

             trations.

                               The Baltimore Sun

 

             

             This is a masterful ode to a biblical

             story, and will give readers of any

             age a cornucopia of images to pore

             over and think about.

  

                                  Publishers Weekly

 

          

           

             Dazzling beauty and poignant

             emotion suffuse these illustrations,

             which give an intensely personal

             interpretation of the King James

             Version of the Easter Gospels.

 

                               School Library Journal

                               starred review

 

Jan Pienkowski, with his ability to tell stories through his own unique artistry, is a gift that both picture book readers and other admirers, have come to linger over and love.

Please enjoy this classic holiday picture book that bears sharing with a young reader, if you are looking for one allowing children, guided by their families, to share in the journey of Holy Week.

Add a Comment

Add a Comment

Petook : An Easter Story

By Caryll Houselander; illustrated by Tomie de Paola

 

I recently stumbled upon this Easter book from 1988, and recognizing the author as Caryll Houselander, spiritual author, counselor, and artist, I was doubly surprised to see its illustrator was none other than  renowned author/illustrator, Tomie dePaola.

For parents and grands looking to introduce the “new life” Christian story of the resurrection, minus some of the details that young readers may not be ready to hear, this is a book that handles it well.

Listen to Tomie’s note at the book’s rear:

 

                 We chose Petook because

                 of its Easter message of birth,

                 rebirth, and resurrection.

                 Petook’s joy at the emergence of

                 new life from the egg certainly

                 echoes the  joy of Christ’s

                 emergence from the tomb.

                 It also breathes new life into

                 the age-old symbol of the Easter

                 egg, helping the reader become

                 aware that it is more than just

  the tasty chocolate treat that we

 associate with Easter today.

                 Without symbols such as this,

                 Christianity becomes pale.

 

Tomie de Paola

August 15, 1987

 

 

Meet Petook, a proud and happy father of a brood of twelve newly hatched chicks in a vineyard. New mom, Martha, is just as proud:

 

            As for his wife Martha, the brown-

           speckled hen, plain and homely soul

           though she was, she had become all

           grand and important.

 

 

Amid all this joy and celebration, a stranger enters the vineyard. There are the clear impressions of a child’s feet coming from the road to Jerusalem. Petook’s fatherly concerns are evident:

 

              I am sure that they were a

              boy’s footsteps and boys are

              sometimes careless, even when

              they’re not cruel. He might tread

              on one of the chicks.

 

Trodden and crushed fruit in the vineyard confirms the intruder.

But, Petook need not have worried about this young visitor.

He displays gentle wonder at the sight of Martha gathering the chicks under her wings.

 

                His hands, which were thin

                and golden-colored, were

                spread out like protecting

                wings over Martha. His lips

                were slightly parted, his eyes

                shining. So rapt was he that

                Petook thought, “It must be

                the first time that he has seen

                a hen gathering her chickens.”

 

 

Instinctively, Petook knows that someone and something amazing visited the vineyard, and he reacts in typical rooster fashion:

 

                  Petook preened himself.

                  He strutted up and down,

                  and round and round. He

                  noticed every detail of the

                  day, just as people notice

                  every detail of a picture if

                  it is rare and lovely and one

                  which may not be seen again.

                  …Suddenly for sheer joy,

                  Petook lifted his head and

                  crowed.

 

Years pass and Petook is now quite old, and yet he is aware of something in the air on a particular day that is an unease, and in the distance is the hill of Calvary where …the three tall trunks always stood. Only when someone was to die were they there.

Ms. Houslander’s picture book does not belabor the death of the now grown young visitor of the vineyard from years before, as it is seen by Petook distantly.

His reaction is one of sadness, yet expectant hope at the new batch of chicks that wife, Martha, is about to hatch.

New life emerges from an egg for Petook and Martha on Easter morning, just as it does from another place of resurrection, seen in the distance, simultaneous to the hatchling’s arrival:

 

 

                 Petook threw back his head

                and crowed and crowed and

                crowed. His red comb burned

                in glory, the white feathers in

                his plumage dazzled in the light,

                the new chicken danced at his

                feet. He crowed again and again.

 

                     It was Easter Morning.

 

 

For young parents attempting to emphasize the holyday aspects of the celebration of Easter, here is a thoughtful picture book  allowing young readers a view of the miracle of resurrection through their faith beliefs, yet it is also mirrored and played out simultaneously in the relatable miracle of nature, providing the continuance and hope of new life.   

 

 

 

 

    

         

 

Add a Comment

So, February happened...
 

Yeah, I'm pretty sure it gave me whiplash as it hurricaned by. It was a *blink* "Whaaaaaa....?" kind of month. Literally, like, *blink*, Valentine's Day, DISNEYLAND, and WHAM. March.


But yeah, directly after Valentine's Day, we got ourselves packed off in a three-car caravan to Disneyland. *Insert whooping and hollering and eight dedicated hours of listening to Il Volo.*





















I want to go back to Disneyland again. Maybe not any time in the near future, but say, like in five years or so. I'd want to for sure re-ride California Screaming, Tower of Terror, Hyperspace Mountain, Star Tours and the Indiana Jones ride, and I wouldn't mind getting back on the Matterhorn and Splash Mountain. I DO want to do Soaring Over California - we weren't able to make that one this year - but other than that, I'd want to explore more, visit more of the park and actually SEE everything instead of hurrying so much. I'd want to check out some of the shops a bit more than I did this time, especially Disneyania where they had two artists arting (that sounds like the 12 days of Christmas, doesn't it? "Two Artists Arting and a Shop full of Disneyland ART!) and The Mad Hatter, and visit Critter Corner and that kind of stuff. So next time, a little more walking and less riding, I think. It was crazy fun, though, and there were so many of us, it was a little terrifying - we were a mob of 17 and we were COOOOOL. IT was coooooool! :-) See? Look at us! Look at how COOL we are! (What a mob.)

Add a Comment

-->

Leprechauns Never Lie

Madison's Patriotic Project

Humbug Rabbit

Visit www.starbrightbooks.com to see our holiday books.

Add a Comment

It’s been about 4 months since I’d last posted anything on this ‘ere blog. With back to back deadlines and prepping for the arrival of our first newborn, the end of 2014 throughout the beginning of 2015 has been at the least to say chaotic and life changing..

If you follow me in any of my social media accounts you’ll notice an exorbitant amount of pictures {I apologize by the way..new mom syndrome you know..} of this little peapod,

 

Meet the new little addition to our growing family, Aria {yes we’re Game of Thrones fans} Rose. Born March 25th 2015 at 3:15 in the morning. It’s been a whole month since her arrival and aside from being sleep deprived, the late night feedings, milk vomits and spit ups, and her constant need to shriek at the top of her lungs..like ALL THE TIME…she hasn’t stopped putting a smile on our face since then.

she finds this all too amusing..

Now to top all that off I’m officially back to work! Hopefully the transition from old schedule to new schedule won’t be too bad

…who am I kidding!?..

..Ah well..wish me luck!

In the meantime here’s the artwork I did for Highlights this past month!

Happy Monday!

 

Add a Comment

Cherry blossoms and bunnies... 'Tis the season

I do plan to paint this image, but do to finishing my next book, it will probably be by the Eastern Orthodox Easter.

Speaking of which, this is a good time to post some of the amazing art at the pained Monasteries in Romania.

Not only are there the ones dating back to the 1400s, but they are building new ones! Such a fascinating art form. It was nice to see the artist credits on the new ones.

Growing up catholic, it is interesting to see parallel but different imagery.

Judgement Day painting on the Voroneț Monastery done in 1547

Detail of the seraphim at the Humor Monastery painted in 1535

Lives of the saints or rather the martyrdom of them, Voroneț Monastery

More seraphim at Voroneț Monastery

A new depiction of Judgement Day

Seraphim detail

New Judgement Day at a church in Bucharest

Detail of the Judgement Day painting in Bucharest. Ioana and I were pleased to see the artists credited inside.

All of the Judgement Day paintings have the people being 'reconstituted', even if devoured by wild beasts. Such delightful imagery!

My monastery sketches and more of my write ups are here.

http://christinawald.blogspot.com/2014/11/trip-to-romania-part-3-painted.html

Add a Comment

Here's one of my forgotten books - the Easter Surprise! It was painted in real paints on gessoed paper (for all you hard-line real media folks). And it featured idyllic scenes of baby farm animals frolicking in pastoral locales. I think it does have a nice painterly aspect to it. And now I'm much more forgiving of it's innocence, all these years later.  I think it's sweet... loving kindness.

Add a Comment

As is well known, the death of Jesus was a problem. How do you explain that your elevated hero ended up dead on a Roman cross? Or, as Paul famously put it, "we proclaim Christ crucified, a stumbling block to Jews and foolishness to gentiles." Trying to reconstruct in any detail the historical realities which may (or may not) have generated the story of the Passion is extremely difficult.

The post Thoughts on the crucifixion of Jesus appeared first on OUPblog.

Add a Comment

I have ambivalent feelings about Easter. I am sure I am not alone in this attitude towards the greatest of events on the Christian calendar, especially among people who grew up, as I did, in intensely religious (and loving) families but who have long put their Christian beliefs behind them. As it happens, my family were Quakers and that religion does not mark out the church festivals. But I went to a school that had a great musical tradition and each year there was a performance of one of the Bach Passions, alternating the St Matthew with the St John.

The post Easter for a non-believer appeared first on OUPblog.

Add a Comment

There are scenes in the Bible that cause a visceral reaction for even the most disinterested reader. As we view the Garden of Gethsemane in our mind’s eye, we see one of Jesus’ closest companions, Judas Iscariot, leading a band of men. He smiles broadly, “Rabbi!,” greeting Jesus with a kiss. The kiss, that universal sign of intimacy and affection, lands on Jesus like a knife twisting in the back.

The post Good Friday: divine abandonment or Trinitarian performance? appeared first on OUPblog.

Add a Comment

Easter, commemorating the Resurrection of Jesus Christ, is historically the most important of all Christian festivals, even though in some Western countries it has largely lost the religious significance it retains amongst the Orthodox; nevertheless it merits discussion in a broader context not only because it is often a public as well as a religious holiday, or indeed because even Christians may be baffled by its apparently capricious incidence, but because the history of its calculation illustrates many complexities of time-reckoning.

The post The origins of Easter appeared first on OUPblog.

Add a Comment

Add a Comment

[There is a video that cannot be displayed in this feed. Visit the blog entry to see the video.]

 

 

Add a Comment

I remember the Passover Seder as a very special time. My brothers and I got new clothes that we had to save specially until that evening; this heightened our sense of anticipation and symbolized the special nature of this holiday. I can still envision preparing for Passover in the Orthodox home of my childhood: I remember the frenzied work of emptying out all our cabinets, packing up the food we ate for the other 357 days of the year and lining all the cabinets, the stove, and the refrigerator with extra thick aluminum foil.

The post An Orthodox Passover appeared first on OUPblog.

Add a Comment

It's the last day before the Easter holidays begin and I have a last minute selection of cards to showcase the work of some fab artists. The first is Jessica Hogarth who creates some really striking and contemporary greetings cards. Her Easter designs are no exception and can be found in her online store here or at Not on the High Street. Below ; Several quirky Easter designs from La

Add a Comment

To round off four days of seasonal Easter design I have a few snap shots of cards spotted in stores. The first few are from publisher Paper Salad snapped in a local independent department store. Also snapped colourful eggs (above) from Rachel Ellen and below three cards from Laura Darrington's 'Festive Folk' collection. Below : Finally a small Easter selection

Add a Comment