What I’m Doing at Kirkus This Week &
One Very Possible and Very Festive
2011 Holiday Illustration Before Breakfast #6
December 9th, 2011 by jules
(Click to enlarge spread)
This week at Kirkus, I take a look at Inga Moore’s A House in the Woods. That link is here this morning.
If you missed last week’s column, I wrote about Lita Judge’s Red Sled. My breakfast interview with Lita was yesterday, and it includes several spreads from this beautiful picture book.
In keeping with my promise this month to post some 2011 holiday illustrations, this morning I’ve got my favorite spread (above) from John Harris’s Jingle Bells: How the Holiday Classic Came to Be (Peachtree, October 2011), illustrated by Adam Gustavson. This fictionalized picture book tells the story of James Lord Pierpont, a Unitarian music director in Savannah, Georgia, in the 1850s, whose church was being harassed for allowing former slaves to attend services. Pierpont, originally from Boston and also struggling with the sweltering Georgia heat, composed the song for his daughter, Lillie, who had never seen snow.
Gustavson, who rendered this one in oils, will be visiting the 7-Imp breakfast table for a Q & A in 2012.
JINGLE BELLS: HOW THE HOLIDAY CLASSIC CAME TO BE. Text copyright © 2011 by John Harris. Illustrations copyright © 2011 by Adam Gustavson. Published by Peachtree, Atlanta. Image reproduced by permission of the illustrator.
Sounds interesting! Will look forward to ‘meeting’the author soon!
[…] Jingle Bells: How the Holiday Classic Came to Be by John Harris. Peachtree Publishers. […]