David Wiesner
Award winning illustrator David Wiesner brings something very different to children's books. He won the Caldecott twice for what has been described as his fiendishly brilliant art in wordless books. David grew up in New Jersey and attended the acclaimed Rhode Island School of Design. His confession that he read comic books as a kid proves that you can become an artist growing up on that form of literature. For him, art was always a private thing and just another class at school. He didn't feel that school offered him an outlet, because what he was doing on his own was much more interesting. Fortunately he had a high school teacher "who lived for someone who was interested in art." During his last thee years of high school, David developed his own curriculum. Having this happen in high school was a great prelude to art school where students are pretty much self-driven. David joined a group of other illustrators at an event hosted by the Corcoran Gallery in Washington DC (September 2003). In addition to lectures and panel sessions, the illustrators provided hands-on demonstrations of their various techniques.
David does not create books quickly-they take from one to three years. He starts with tiny sketch books, thumbnails and then develops a dummy of the book. When these are completed, he starts his book with full size, pencil drawings and then moves on to the finished drawings. Sometimes he does need to undertake some research by going to look at animals such as pigs or frogs. He then makes models and takes pictures and with various light settings to study the shadows to see the various effects. After this stage David is ready to paint the pictures. In his case, he really has to make sure that the pictures are telling the story, since there are no words. He thinks of a wordless book as if it were a movie in his head with a rhythm in the pictures. He strives to create images that make the reader (viewer) want to delve into the picture. Sometimes he has to leave out a lot of great material in order to make the story move. His work is totally devoted to books and he doesn't create other types of art for sale or for is own personal expression.
A few of his books are reviewed below--for more about David Wiesner visit his website or this interview.
Contributor: Marilyn Coutot
Reviews
June 29, 1999
David Wiesner
In Ho-Ho-Kus, New Jersey, child scientist Holly Evans uses helium balloons to launch vegetable seedlings into the sky so that she can study the effects of extraterrestrial conditions on their development. Six weeks later, giant turnips descend on Montana. In fact, each region of the United States is soon dealing with giant vegetables of some form or another. Wiesner's hilarious paintings of citizens throughout the nation creatively coping with an increase in produce (peas, for example, must be floated like barges down the Mississippi) are accompanied by cleverly understated captions which make this spoof on American resourcefulness even funnier. And what does scientist Evans conclude from her experiment? Even though she knows the giant vegetables aren't the results of her experiment (she never launched arugula!), only readers are let in on the truth behind this strange series of events. CCBC categories: Picture Books. 1992, Clarion, 32 pages, $15.95. Ages 4-9. Reviewer: CCBC (Cooperative Children's Book Center Choices, 1992).
Best Books:
Adventuring with Books: A Booklist for Pre-K-Grade 6, Tenth Edition, 1993; National Council of Teachers of English; United States
Best Children's Books, 1992; New York Times; United States
Children's Catalog, Eighteenth Edition, 2001; H.W. Wilson; United States
Fanfare Honor List, 1992; Horn Book; United States
Notable Books for Children, 1992; American Library Association-ALSC; United States
School Library Journal: Best Books, 1992; Cahners; United States
Awards, Honors, Prizes:
Golden Duck Award for Excellence in Children's Science Fiction Literature Winner 1993 Picture Book United States
ISBN: 0-395-59762-5
Gonna Roll the Bones
Story by Fritz Leiber
Adapted by Sarah L. Thomson
Illustrated by David Wiesner
As his major project of his senior year at Rhode Island School of Design, this eerie Hugo and Nebula Award-winning story has been adapted by noted wordless picture book author/illustrator for a different audience. Joe Slattermill leaves his disapproving mother and poor bread-baker wife to gamble with dice in the village, or "roll the bones" at The Boneyard. The gambling joint is populated by turn-of-the century sorts, one big-time gambler named Mr. Bones, and one really Big Gambler. Joe wins four thousand dollars from Mr. Bones but wants to stay to challenge the Big Gambler, who's a skeleton figure, a cheater, and in the end, the winner of Joe's life. But Joe fights the Boneyard denizens so hard that he seemingly wins and heads home, but the long way, around the world. Pacing lurches in this story, with occasional inelegant word choice (a die "comes down okay"), and an unclear end. Did Joe outwit the devil/skeleton or is he just cursed to wander before he is caught again? Wiesner's sketchbook illustrations, done with pencil on vellum, have an appropriately eerie cast, plenty of unspecific background, and a sense of design that later will be apparent in his wonderful wordless books. Readers may note that text states Mr. Bones wears a tie clasp with his name on it but the picture shows it clearly as an embellishment on the shoulder of his suit. The pleasing orangey-brown frame of the brown pencil line illustrations is not complemented by enough action, especially in the later illustrations, to entice another look. The audience for this challenging of the devil story, which seems to be upper elementary and not early elementary as suggested by the publishers, may be old enough to appreciate this story as the beginning of Weisner's picture book making, but it's not a first purchase. 2004, Milk & Cookies Press/Simon & Schuster, Ages 6 to 12, $16.95. Reviewer: Susan Hepler
ISBN: 0-689-03591-8
Sector 7
David Wiesner
On a school field trip to the Empire State Building, a boy escapes on a friendly little cloud to visit Sector 7, where clouds are formed and dispersed. In totally wordless format, a genre for which it is increasingly hard to find examples, Wiesner reveals how the boy is delighted with his new friend and astounded with the train-station-like assignment room, where clouds are given the blueprints for their next shapes. Bored with the usual puffy dimensions, the clouds ask the boy to design new shapes, and soon fish and creatures of the deep are floating inside the station. Discovered by the humans who run Sector 7, the boy is escorted by a cloud and his parents back to New York where he rejoins his class. Later, the evening sky is covered with fish-clouds. Wiesner divides pages into narrative spaces, framed and unframed, which will have children looking closely and again at the details of the narrative. He evokes smiles by including small touches such as the clouds taking numbers to get a new blueprint from the boy, and the red-hatted little cloud puffing importantly before his jut-jawed cloud dad and fish and flying things appearing in various scenes. A fine addition to Wiesner's wordless and near wordless oeuvre, this one is sure to circulate in libraries and will be a favorite "talk aloud" book with groups of children. 1999, Clarion, $16.00. Ages 5 to 8. Reviewer: Susan Hepler, Ph.D. (Children's Literature).
Best Books:
The Best Children's Books of the Year, 2000; Bank Street College of Education; United States
Bulletin Blue Ribbons, 1999; Bulletin of the Center for Children's Books; United States
Capitol Choices, 1999; The Capitol Choices Committee; United States
Children's Catalog, Eighteenth Edition, 2001; H.W. Wilson; United States
The Children's Literature Choice List, 2000; Children's Literature; United States
Fanfare Honor List, 1999; Horn Book; United States
Not Just for Children Anymore!, 2000; Children's Book Council; United States
Notable Books for Children, 2000; American Library Association-ALSC; United States
Notable Children's Books in the Language Arts, 2000; National Council of Teachers of English; United States
Publishers Weekly Book Review Stars, August 1999; Cahners; United States
School Library Journal Book Review Stars, September 1999; Cahners; United States
School Library Journal: Best Books, 1999; Cahners; United States
Awards, Honors, Prizes:
ABC Children's Booksellers Choices Award Winner 2000 Picture Books United States
American Booksellers Book Sense Book of the Year (ABBY) Award Finalist 2000 Children United States
Elizabeth Burr Award Winner 2000 United States
Randolph Caldecott Medal Honor Book 2000 United States
State and Provincial Reading Lists:
Georgia Children's Literature Awards, 2001-2002; Nominee; Georgia
Red Clover Children's Choice Picture Book Award , 2000-2001; Nominee; Vermont
Utah Children's Book Awards, 2002; Nominee; Utah
ISBN: 0-395-74656-6
The Three Pigs
David Wiesner
Out of the familiar world of the traditional porcine trio illustrated in the traditional style slink Wiesner's pigs, moving the pages of the story about, folding them into paper airplanes, and sailing into other familiar tales. They pick up a friendly dragon along with other friends as they reconstruct their own happy ending. Wiesner delights in deconstructing pages of illustrations and treating them as building materials. His porkers have real personalities! They also are performers, delivering their lines in speech balloons. Their glide along the empty pages is almost brazen. Their adventure is surreal for sure, but done with joy and bravado that demand repeated visits to experience it all. 2001, Clarion Books/Houghton Mifflin, $16.00. Ages 4 to 8. Reviewers: Ken Marantz and Sylvia Marantz (Children's Literature).
Wiesner puts his considerable talents to work reworking the story of the three little pigs and the big bad wolf. Rather than allowing the wolf to eat the first little pig, he sends a three-dimensionally-drawn pig out of the boxed illustration that shows the wolf blowing down the pig's flimsy straw house. The next boxed illustration shows a perplexed wolf looking for his pig. The other pigs follow their brother outside the pages of the book, which we see strewn across a double-page spread, and begin to explore using a paper airplane folded from one of "their" book's pages. Crash-landing into a book of Mother Goose rhymes, the pigs escape into a story about a dragon and rescue the creature from the bemused-looking knight who has been sent to slay him. Back in their own story (and back to one dimension), the three pigs find that the dragon is an effective means of scaring off the big bad wolf. A clever tale that will keep kids poring over every detail. 2001, Clarion Books, $16.00. Ages 5 to 10. Reviewer: Cherri Jones (Children's Literature).
Best Books:
The Best Children's Books of the Year, 2002; Bank Street College of Education; United States
Capitol Choices, 2001; The Capitol Choices Committee; United States
Children's Book Sense 76 Picks, Spring/Summer 2001; Book Sense 76; United States
Children's Catalog, Eighteenth Edition, Supplement, 2002; H.W. Wilson; United States
Los Angeles' 100 Best Books, 2001; IRA Children's Literature and Reading SIG and the Los Angeles Unified School District; United States
Notable Books for Children, 2002; American Library Association-ALSC; United States
Notable Children's Books in the Language Arts, 2002; National Council of Teachers of English; United States
Parent's Guide to Children's Media, 2001; Parent's Guide to Children's Media, Inc.; United States
Publishers Weekly Best Children's Books, 2001; Cahners; United States
Publishers Weekly Book Review Stars, February 2001; Cahners; United States
Reading Magic Awards, 2001; Parenting; United States
School Library Journal Book Review Stars, April 2001; Cahners; United States
School Library Journal: Best Books, 2001; Cahners; United States
Awards, Honors, Prizes:
ABC Children's Booksellers Choices Award Winner 2002 Special Subjects United States
Borders Original Voices Awards Nominee 2002 Children's Picture Book United States
International Board on Books for Young People IBBY Honor List Winner 2004 Illustration International
Irma S. and James H. Black Award for Excellence in Children's Literature Winner 2001 United States
Randolph Caldecott Medal Winner 2002 United States
State and Provincial Reading Lists:
Buckeye Children's Book Award, 2002; Nominee; Ohio
Kentucky Bluegrass Award, 2003; Nominee; Kentucky
ISBN: 0-618-00701-6
Tuesday
David Wiesner
Down at the pond on a Tuesday evening around 8:00, lily pads mysteriously begin to function as flying carpets, lifting frogs gently from the water's surface and carrying them into a nearby town. A horde of benign airborne frogs descends upon the town's unsuspecting, apparently oblivious, human residents who continue with their mundane routines undisturbed -- eating a late-night snack, falling asleep in front of the television set, etc. Whatever the magic, it apparently fades away with the rising sun and the frogs hop back to their watery home, leaving the townspeople to puzzle over an inexplicable infestation of lily pads on city streets. A nearly wordless book invites readers to supply the details about an unusual occurrence wryly depicted with watercolor paintings which succeed in a perfect blend of realism and fantasy. CCBC categories: Picture Books; Books For Toddlers. 1991, Clarion Books, 32 pages, $15.95. Ages 3-8. Reviewer: CCBC (Cooperative Children's Book Center Choices, 1991)
Best Books:
Adventuring with Books: A Booklist for Pre-K-Grade 6, Tenth Edition, 1993; National Council of Teachers of English; United States
Bulletin Blue Ribbons, 1991; Bulletin of the Center for Children's Books; United States
Children's Catalog, Eighteenth Edition, 2001; H.W. Wilson; United States
Recommended Literature: Kindergarten through Grade Twelve, 2002; California Department of Education; California
School Library Journal: Best Books, 1991; Cahners; United States
Awards, Honors, Prizes:
ABC Children's Booksellers Choices Award Winner 1992 Picture Books United States
Kentucky Bluegrass Award Winner 1993 Grades K-3 Kentucky
Randolph Caldecott Medal Winner 1992 United States
Reading Magic Awards Winner 1991 United States
Young Hoosier Book Award Winner 1993 Grades K-3 Indiana
Young Hoosier Book Award Winner 2002 Grades K-3 Indiana
Young Hoosier Book Award Winner 2002 Grades 4-6 Indiana
Young Hoosier Book Award Winner 2002 Grades 6-8 Indiana
State and Provincial Reading Lists:
Kentucky Bluegrass Award, 1993; Nominee; Kentucky
ISBN: 0-395-55113-7
Added 10/01/04
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If you’re interested in reviewing children's and young adult books, then send a resume and writing sample to marilyn@childrenslit.com.