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I'll take one illustration with everything. Oh wait...hold the pickles, please.

I overlooked an important detail when I drew this illustration. Without any thought, I had drawn the kids barefoot. Oopsies. I worked on this assignment in the middle of summer, but it was to be published in the middle of winter. Not a good time to be barefoot! The publisher asked me to please put some socks on their cold little tootsies! I think that one small detail warmed the whole page.

As artists I think we can all agree that details add immensely to a finished piece. As weird as it might sound, to me, details are equally as important as a composition's foundation. Though a piece technically can be successful without embellishments given a good foundation, it can, in the end, have a limited shelf life if there is no interesting details to draw the viewer back in time and time again.

First of all, little details are fun. They help tell a story -- they share information about whatever aspect they embellish. I like to draw a boy or a girl with detailed clothing: a flower patch or fringe on her jeans, Crocs on her feet. What type of barrettes is she wearing? Can you tell what her favorite color is by her clothing? (You can probably tell what her favorite flower is from that patch on her jeans, too.) The details are also what keep you going back for more, over the long haul. Of course, if the composition itself is not strong, then it's time to start over. You can't hide a bad flower arrangement by throwing in a bunch of 'distracting' baby's breath and ferns. But, when everything is in there pulling its own weight, you have an illustration that viewers will keep coming back to again and again -- an image that keeps giving the viewer something new to discover on repeated viewings.

Author: Pooja Makhijani
Illustrator: Elena Gomez
Published: 2007 Little Brown And Company (on JOMB)
ISBN: 0316011053 Chapters.ca Amazon.com

Wrapped in crimson, green and gold, this warmly worded and richly illustrated account of motherly love shares a glimpse of the caring and compromise that can make minutes meaningful.

Other books mentioned:

• Bintou’s Braids

Pooja Makhijani is well known in the kidlit world: her annotated bibliography of South Asia and the South Asian Diaspora in children's literature is second-to-none, she's a frequent commenter on listservs and blogs, a guest blogger, and the editor of Under Her Skin: How Girls Experience Race in America. Her first picture book, Mama's Saris, has been released just this month and I'm happy to report it's a beauty.

The narrator of Mama's Saris is about to turn seven years old and Mama, who wears saris only for special occasions, is choosing what she will wear to her daughter's party. The daughter helps, but, really, all she wants is to wear a sari too:

"Mama unfurls it. It shines like the afternoon sun. I watch her tuck one end into her petticoat and pull the other end over her left shoulder. Then she folds the pleats, weaving the fabric into an accordion between her slim fingers.

I look down at my Mary Janes and corduroy jumper. I feel so plain next to her."

Finally, mama relents and helps her daughter dress in one of her saris, accented with gold bangles and a bindi. When she is dressed, the narrator looks in the mirror:

"I feel like I am floating in an ocean of blue. The shiny material makes me sparkle. I think it looks beautiful."

When mama asks, "what do you think?", the little girl answers, "I think I look like you."

It's a simple story on the surface of things, but the text speaks volumes about growing up, mother-and-daughter relationships, and family traditions. Elena Gomez' s warm, lush paintings fit Makhijani's text perfectly and bring the saris and mother and daughter to life. Mama's Saris is a lovely, heartfelt debut and not to be missed.
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Other blog reviews:

Saffron Tree
Sepia Mutiny
Chicken Spaghetti
Book Moot
A Chair, a Fireplace and a Tea Cozy
A Fuse #8 Production
Uma Krishnaswami

We used to watch one of those home do-over shows on BBC America where the designer and her lads would rework and redecorate several rooms in a home by just using old paint, wood and material that the homeowner happened to have lying around the homestead.

Remarkably, there always seemed to be several new sheets of MDF in the shed but the show was entertaining with results that varied between, "That's not so bad" to "Eeeeewww..."

One aspect of the program that was interesting to me, as a fabric person, was the large number of people that seemed to have sari fabric stashed away just waiting to be draped around a window or over a bed.

Intrigued, one of the entlings and I visited a store in our wonderful metropolis that sells clothing and fabric from India. What an experience!

Long rolls of fabric lined the walls. It was like a glittering, glowing shimmering color wheel. Initially, the best we could manage was, "um, how about...orange." We were faced with more patterns and shades of orange to red to yellow than we could take in. The sales woman cheerfully pulled down bolt after bolt and sent the rolls of fabric shooting across the large tables so we could see the amazing designs and hues.

We left with three lengths of color feeling dazzled and elated.



This memory was in my mind as I looked at Pooja Makhijani's new book, Mama's Saris. The little girl in the story is celebrating her seventh birthday and asks to wear one of her mother's saris. Thinking the girl is too young, the mother tries to negotiate (haven't we all done this?) with her daughter, "Why don't you wear your chaniya choli?" Ultimately, she is moved by the strength of her daughter's memories and acknowledges this special occasion by letting her daughter select a sari to wear.

Elena Gomez has caught the glow and shimmer of this elegant clothing in the backgrounds of the illustrations. The fabric fairly swirls off the page as the little girl looks at herself in the mirror for the first time.

Lovely, lovely book.

Pooja Makhijani's website
Mama's Saris teacher guide



I saw this book at TLA at the Little, Brown booth and Pooja kindly sent me a copy.