Eric Carle Museum of Picture Book Art

Anyone who has loved The Very Hungry Caterpillar or the illlustrations in Brown Bear, Brown Bear, What Do You See? will consider a stop at the Eric Carle Museum of Picture Book Art to be a destination to be coveted.  The exhibits always showcase the work of Eric Carle, as well as, showcasing many other picture book illustrators.  They are also the sponsor of many workshops.  A recent one with Susan Bloom was billed as: "...highly popular annual event! In anticipation of the 2012 Caldecott Medal awarded annually to the artist of the most distinguished American picture book for children for the preceding year, Susan Bloom selects her favorites. Learn from this outstanding professor of Children’s Literature and reviewer for the Horn Book what makes these books rise above the rest."
Jennifer Buliszak was fortunate enough to be able to register and attend the workshop.  She says,

"It was such fun to sit in the auditorium and listen to her [Bloom's] thought-provoking and eloquent booktalks (for an hour and a half) on all these fantastic new picturebooks that I was unfamiliar with previously. There was a rich discussion about the Caldecott criteria afterward.  
The museum is such an amazing place. When I purchased my admission ticket at the front desk, the clerk cheerfully asked me which picture book I was rooting for for the 2013 Caldecott award as she was polling all the visitors that morning. I voted for Extra Yarn and she said that she has heard many votes for that title in particular."

I'm sort of with Jennifer on this one -- Extra Yarn is an amazing book and a lot of fun to read and share.  This book was profiled at AuthorAuthorIllustrator.blogspot.com along with comments by Michelle Edwards. You can access a PDF copy of Bloom's list of The Best of the Best in 2012 on the Eric Carle Museum's site.

With permission from the museum staff, Jennifer took some pictures of the exterior areas of the museum and the bookstore.  Here are her pictures with some comments from me -- a lot of ideas emerge from seeing these photos.

The exterior of the building provides a clue as to the white crispness

that we will see on the interior.  A wonderful backdrop for the brilliant

colors of Eric Carle's art.

What could be more fun than this wonderful Caterpillar Bug
that serves as an official vehicle for the museum?  Makes me
want to purchase a "bug" for myself.

The long expansive hall -- all white with brilliant splashes of color is an indication of the vibrant colors showcased throughout the museum. The mobiles hanging from the ceiling seem to feature other illustrators.  The one most immediately in the foreground (top left) appears to be a character from either a Richard Scarry book or perhaps an illustration by Wendy Watson.  Or maybe just a Red Fox from one of Carle's books -- a fox reading a book.  I'd have to have a closer look.  However, the stye of the mobile is interesting.  Might be an interesting (and simple) type of mobile for young readers to make.

At the front of this activity area the butterfly from The Very Hungry
Caterpillar emerges in all of its brilliance.  Picture this on a wall of a
child's nursery/playroom.

A wonderful idea to create unique and original papers for collages by utilizing some
of the techniques used by Eric Carle.  Begin with archival tissue paper and paint
designs to create textured and unique papers.  Eric Carle shares his technique on his
website -- his slideshow of how he creates the papers is very instructive.  One creative
mother used the concept to allow her children to create tissue paper and collages.  Take
a look at The Imagination Tree: Eric Carle Tissue Paper Prints (blog entry).  Using this art
to make some initial pictures can provide some lovely art for a child's room.

Makes me stop and think what other hands on activities might
be incorporated into an evening of literacy activities for a community
event celebrating an author or books.  One educator I know held an
entire chocolate day - books for all ages.  Parents came in to teach how
to make fudge, chocolate truffles, and so forth.  Perhaps a little art
making spider webs on paper, with straws (to blow the paint) and
watercolors.  What else would fit here?

The next four pictures show the book store at the museum.  Look
around - see the wonderful Wild Thing topper on the bookshelf,
the art work on the walls -- books facing out to showcase the
wonderful art.  Does your child have a library in your house?
How important are books in your home?

Note the book on the table - Eric Carle's 2012 book - The Artist Who Painted Blue a Blue Horse.  The Artist Who Painted a Blue Horse, is an homage to the Expressionist painter Franz Marc. In WW11 Germany, Carle's high school teacher Herr Krauss introduced him to abstract and Expressionist art during a time when works such as these had been banned by German officials.  Learn more about the title on Carle's website and view a video about the book on my YouTube channel: McElmeel101.  The animal carpet in the background can be purchased from Demco.com - search for Eric Carle.  A search of the Internet for Eric Carle fabric will yield some choices that will make some delightful curtains, pillows, quilts and so forth.  I am particularly fond of AndoverFabrics.com which has a lot of Eric Carle fabric but also offers free patterns for several Carle themed quilts - Brown Bear, Ten Little Ducks, a Happy Birthday quilt, and others.

   I love the artwork on the left of this picture -- makes me think that blocks of fabric sewn into a simple quilt might make a great wall hanging for a stairwell.  Once upon a time I wallpapered a stair well with book jackets -- that was 30 years ago and I still love that wall.

Just looking through these pictures make me want to visit the museum even more and I haven't even seen any of the displays.  Thank you Jennifer Buliszak for sharing your photos with my readers (and with me).  I may have to settle for making another quilt -- but Carle's work has inspired me to do something.  Perhaps a name collage with tissue paper art.  We'll see.

Library of America - Laura Ingalls Wilder

December 3, 2012, the Iowa City Public Library and Prairie Lights sponsored a program with Caroline Fraser, the editor of the Library of America Edition of Laura Ingalls Wilder's Little House books.

Fraser was born in Seattle and now lives in Sante Fe, New Mexico.  She attended Harvard and earned a Ph.D. in American Literature and English.  She is an accomplished author with credits for articles in The New Yorker, The Atlantic Monthly, Outside Magazine and other prestigious publications.  Fraser has earned a PEN award for the best young writer and numerous awards for her poetry.  Originally Fraser had been scheduled to be in Iowa City during October, but was kept in New York City by the severe storm/hurricane that swept the Eastern coast.  Two months later the event was rescheduled.

During the evening Fraser recounted general information about Wilder. Laura Ingalls was born in 1867 and lived until 1957.  Showing slides Fraser commented on elements of Wilder's life at the time.
This photo is of Laura and her two sisters, Carrie (left), Mary (middle) and Laura (right).  The photo was most likely taken in the late 1870s or the early 1880s.  Historians do not seem to be in agreement about whether or not Mary is blind by this time or not.

 Mary became blind in 1879 and by the time this picture was taken, the three girls had seen and experienced a lot.  They had traveled to Kansas and back to Wisconsin, survived blizzards and endured (and survived) the drought and conditions that resulted in the Locus Plague of 1874-1875.  Over 198,000 square miles were affected when more than 3.5 trillion insects swarmed a great swath of the Midwest -- from Canada to Texas.  More about this plague can be read on the Hearthstone Legacy's site and the article "When the Skies Turned to Black: The Locust Plague of 1875."

Laura and the entire family worked hard to earn enough money to send Mary to the Blind school in Iowa (College for the Blind, Vinton, Iowa) -- they worked in service, cleaning hotel rooms, waiting tables, caring for children - anything they could do to earn money.  At age 17, Laura went to teach school.  On weekends Almanzo would pick Laura up at the school and take her home for the weekend.  Almanzo earned the hearts of many when he "saved the town of DeSmet" during the severe winter in the early 1880s.  He and another young man rode out of town, at great danger  to himself, to get wheat for the townspeople to make bread which kept the townspeople from certain starvation.

The couple became engaged to marry in 1885, Almanzo was 10 years older than Laura -- and she seemed somewhat embarrassed by that.  In her stories she made that age gap somewhat less than it really was.  But in fact such an age gap was quite common in those days.  Almanzo built a very nice house for Laura, on his tree claim.  He was farming and the first few years the crops failed miserably.  Rose (their only daughter) was born and later a son (Frederick) who died in infancy.  Both Laura and Almanzo became affected with Diphtheria.  Laura seemed to recover completely but Almanzo returned to work too early and as a result suffered a stroke that would affect him the rest of his life.  Shortly after the wonderful house burned to the ground.  The Wilders were firmly in debt and had no way to recover.  They lived with her parents for a time and then spent a few months (or more) in Florida thinking that the weather might be good for Almanzo.  It did not seem to help.  The family moved back to DeSmet and then heard about land in Missouri that was rather cheap.
Before Laura left DeSmet the family posed for a family portrait.  It was the last time Laura was to see her father until she returned when he was on his death bed (Pa died September 8, 1902).  Laura's family was very close and much of her later writing attempted to capture that closeness.

L-to R: Ma, Carrie, Laura (with her hand on Pa's shoulder), Grace, and Mary seated on the right.

They eventually purchased a few acres there.  The land was filled with rocks and thus Laura named their new home Rocky Ridge Farm.  The first year they spent clearing (and selling) trees from the land.    Times were hard.  Travel was not easy during Laura's and Almanzo's early marriage years.  In fact, she last saw her family in 1902 during the time her father Charles died.  Laura's mother Caroline died in 1924.  Laura did not attend her mother's funeral and had not, in fact, seen her since the death of Charles.

Laura and Almanzo continued to eke out a living in Mansfield.  Laura fed travelers who came through town and Almanzo acted as a delivery person of sorts - meeting travelers at the train station and delivering their baggage to their destination.
Laura was deeply affected by the death of her mother (1924) and her sister Mary (1928).  By now Laura's only child Rose Wilder Lane was a successful writer and journalist and it was Rose who encouraged Laura to begin to write.  Laura became quite an expert on the raising of chickens and was a columnist (twice a month) for the Missouri Ruralist.  Rose encouraged her mother to write her memoirs.  Much has been written about the process of rejections and final acceptance of a manuscript for the first book that was to become the "Little House" series.

 Laura's books were published during the Depression and the expectations for their success was minimal.  But they were successful and the books continue in their popularity today.  Laura was 65 at the date of her first book's publication.

One of Laura Ingalls Wilder's public appearances was at a book signing, October 1952, in
Brown's Book Store, in Springfield, Missouri.  At the time she was 85-years-old.  Almanzo had died in 1949 - three years earlier in October.  Shortly after this appearance Laura became very frail -- she died three days after her 90th birthday.  (b. Feb. 7, 1867 - d. Feb. 10, 1957)
Note in this picture of the 1952 signing that the bookshelves hold copies of the earlier published Little House books.   The books published in the 1930s were illustrated in by Helen Sewell and Mildred Boyle.  In 1953, a republication of the books, with black and white illustrations by Garth Williams was published by HarperCollins.  Currently the Williams illustrations have been colorized and the books have been published with those illustrations.

Los Angeles Review of Books (October 10, 2012) carried an essay by Caroline Fraser, Laura Ingalls Wilder and the Wolves in which she discusses the eight novels published between 1932 and 1943 and what Fraser considers the "politicization" of the Wilder books.  Some of these sentiments were revealed during the Q&A session that followed the formal presentation by Fraser.

The comments about the American Library's unillustrated volumes containing the 8 Little House books were slight but Fraser did mention that some changes were made in spelling/typos in the earlier published books and that extensive notes and bibliographic sources for notes were included in the book.
Learn more about Caroline Fraser at www.carolinefraser.net.

Interestingly, in the audience was one of our area's experts on Laura Ingalls Wilder, Sarah S. Uthoff.  Sarah often portrays Laura and provides presentations about her and her life, writings, and topics related to Wilder.  On my YouTube channel: mcelmeel 101 -- on my children's literature playlist, you can find links to Sarah's Laura Ingalls Wilder FAQ video and to a summary of Laura Ingalls Wilder's life "Little House on the Prairie."
Visit Sarah's website at www.trundlebedtales.com.