Book By Its Cover » Playpen: New Children’s Book Illustration

1.22.08

Playpen: New Children’s Book Illustration

Martin Salisbury

I bought this book because I figured I had a lot to learn about what was happening in the world of contemporary kid’s books. It’s hard to keep up when you don’t have children to buy books for. Flipping through this book I realized I knew a little something- four of the illustrators featured in this book I’ve posted about before- Harriet Russell, J.otto Seibold, Květa Pacovská and Sara Fanelli. Among them there’s a great variety of other really unique illustrator’s books I may have to purchase like this one by Jeff Fisher, or this one by Norway’s Ragnar Aalbu. This book gives you a great taste of their work with photographs of the actual books spread open, set against white, along with a bio of each illustrator. Pick up a copy right here.

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8 Comments

01/22/08 11:18am

Jess wrote

Aww, you found my secret source of awesome foreign children’s books as potential gifts. No art books are safe from Julia’s collecting!

01/22/08 3:39pm

claire wrote

a book that makes you buy more books. super.

01/22/08 3:56pm

karin wrote

Fantastic.

01/22/08 5:50pm

mike lowery wrote

Amazing. I JUST found out about this book this weekend and was going to recommend it. For folks in the DC area, they sell it at the National Building Museum’s bookshop (if visiting the area, you all should be sure to check out this little-known museum. My wife and I love it).

It is interesting to see that the pages that you selected from the book (as are most of the pages in the book), really showcase how “contemporary” children’s illustration looks more than a little like…”non contemporary” illustration. I see this a lot in design circles, and unique bookshops but not as much in the chain bookstores. Maybe in a few years?

01/23/08 11:51am

sosser wrote

be still, my heart… this is too too good! i may be abusing a credit card this afternoon.

01/23/08 10:44pm

Abbey H wrote

This book looks amazing. I used to work at a picture book art museum and they had (and continue to have) amazing exhibitions of artwork from picture books. Seibold, Russell, and Fanelli were three of my faves. I also love Shaun Tan’s work. BTW- the museum is The Eric Carle Museum in Amherst, Mass.- if you’re in that area, I highly recommend checking it out.

01/25/08 5:56pm

Janet wrote

Great!

02/14/08 5:13am

Mei Lynn cheung wrote

I bought this book in the weekend and thought it was a great source for any one interested in either children’s books or illustration. Great for variation and very informative.

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