Black and White

Kitten's First Full Moon by Kevin Henkes
Why do artists continue to illustrate picture books in black and white when color printing is an option? Black and white has many benefits.

Revisiting the Moon

Max and the Tag-Along Moon
A full moon on December 29 ended the year 2020. New year, new moon, and we are thinking once again about moon books – we’ve looked at some of these before, but good books, like the moon, keep coming back.

Dogs and Cats, Part 2

Peter McCar­ty doesn’t just include his dog, but also his cat in Hon­do and Fabi­an, a 2003 Calde­cott Hon­or book. This sto­ry describes a day in the life of his pets. Hon­do goes to the beach while Fabi­an stays home, but both have a good time. The soft pen­cil illus­tra­tions of the yel­low Labrador retriev­er and the gray tab­by on the front jack­et cov­er are matched with pho­tographs of the real Hon­do and Fabi­an on the back jack­et flap.… more

A Kindle* of Cats

Phyl­lis:  *Even though kin­dle means cats born in the same lit­ter, the allit­er­a­tion was hard to resist. All my work is done in the com­pa­ny of cats,” writes Nico­la Bay­ley, won­der­ful pic­ture book artist and writer, in her book The Nec­es­sary Cat. I know what she means. Right now my cat Luna is sit­ting on the open copy of The Kit­tens’ ABC, clear­ly a cat of dis­cern­ing lit­er­ary taste.… more

That Lovely Ornament, the Moon

Moonlight
by Jacque­line Brig­gs Mar­tin and Phyl­lis Root Jack­ie: We’ve passed the Sol­stice but we still have more night than day. We can watch the moon with our break­fast and with our din­ner. We thought we’d cel­e­brate this sea­son of the moon by shar­ing some sto­ries fea­tur­ing that love­ly ornament. Phyl­lis: And Christ­mas Eve we saw an almost full moon cast­ing shad­ows on the snow before the clouds blew in. Moon­light… more