It’s enjoyable to reread classic pieces of literature once every few years to garner a deeper understanding of the work.  But it’s not always a Brothers Karamazov kind of day.  So sometimes I like to go back to the childhood classics.  And by revisiting once beloved texts with a different set of sensibilities, we can decide for ourselves if the things we loved as kids have held up.

Last December, I spent a few days in the feminine utopia of Little Women. This year, I tried Little House on the Prairie, the 1935 children’s book about a pioneer family’s westward expedition.  I remembered the elemental aspects of Ma and Pa’s wisdom, a covered wagon, and cornmeal mush, all of which all seemed very reassuring after several long months of working in a brightly lit office cubicle.

I made it through the first fifty pages before I was drop dead bored.

Why? Read more »

Andy Warhol was fascinated with the high and low in art, and even twenty years after his death, his Estate has managed to sell limited-edition Campbell’s soup cans in Barney’s for twelve dollars each. But just a few years before the debut of his first soup can screenprint, Andy Warhol illustrated a children’s book, THE LITTLE RED HEN, which will be auctioned off on December 9th.

To me, nowhere is the juxtaposition of the high and low in art more apparent than in children’s illustration. Though one might look at a Jackson Pollock and think (but perhaps not say), “I can splatter paint on a canvas!,” one hears people browsing the picture book section and declaring, “I could draw this!”

But after over three years of reading the query box, I can assure you, ninety-eight percent of the people that scoff at the artwork, cannot just “splatter paint.” I’ve seen everything from four-fingered Santa Clauses, to illustrations of children without necks. And though we advise aspiring children’s writers not to illustrate their own stories unless they think their artwork can truly measure up to the illustrations that are already on the bookshelves, sometimes it’s clear that this advice is ignored at best, and followed at worst. Read more »