BY MARTIN SALISBURY
Laurence King Publishing, 2007
ISBN-13: 978 1 85669 524 4
£19.95
Review by Leo De Freitas
Anything written by Martin Salisbury on the illustration of children’s books is worth taking note of. As leader of the post-graduate MA course in illustration at Cambridge School of Art he has kept himself informed of international developments in the field of children’s illustration and takes an uncompromising stance on the art in the UK today.The Play Pen anthology is a personal selection of international children’s book illustrators intended to show the broad range of conceptual and stylistic trends in the genre today. The general introduction, chapter introductions (Picturebooks, Board books, Alphabets, Wordplay, Novelty, Older children and Non fiction) and preamble to each illustrator are engagingly written and have many interesting questions embedded in them; both theoretical and practical.
Salisbury correctly describes the genre as a potential area for ‘authorial creative design’ and this selection confirms the fact that a number of artists have been able to bring original and imaginative work to the pages of children’s books. I questioned the appropriateness to children’s books of very few of the artists chosen, although I know not all of the images in the book would find acceptance in some circles. There can be a fine line between ‘advancing’ the look of children’s illustrated books and indulging oneself. The seminal sin for both writers and illustrators for children is to be boring, and one can inadvertently become just that by using visual languages that fail to capture the child’s eye and imagination.
It is a moot question whether “…children are more experienced in visual reading than in the past” as this year’s Bologna Ragazzi Award winner, Norwegian artist, Stian Hole imagines (an alternative argument might be that the widely experienced homogenised visuals of electronic games, internet web sites, franchised animations etc rather limits and blunts visual awareness in children). Despite his delicious references to folk art, and its easy, traditional, reading, one wonders whether the ethos rather escapes younger readers - although perhaps not their parents. This doesn’t mean the readers’ haven’t ‘enjoyed’ the work, but there is no reason to think that their enjoyment is predicated on being ‘more experienced in visual reading’.
Not surprisingly, perhaps, I found many of the illustrators listed in the section of books for ‘Older children’ interesting and whilst there were perennial favourites there, like Sara Fanelli and David Hughes, I was personally excited by the painterly work of the Italian illustrator Maurizio Quarello and intrigued by the brooding – if not dark - images from Lisa Evans (one of a number of entries in the book by ex-students of Cambridge School of Art).The section on Non fiction left me thinking that here was an area for further development – although the insistent drawing and sparse design of Frenchman Serge Bloch was satisfying. Anyone who can remember how exciting the informational illustrations from the galaxy of talent that worked for the New Scientist in the 70’s and 80’s, would hunger for such imagination and skill to be explored and applied to the illustration of children’s non-fiction books. Indeed, one or two of Günter Mattei’s illustrations would work forcefully as editorial illustrations.
A well produced book, with large clear images, and the many examples of ‘text and image’ on display, where page spreads demonstrated (largely) successful design solutions to this important dimension of the children’s book, was particularly appreciated.
Top: Martin Jarrie
Interior spread from ABC USA (Sterling Juvenile, 2005)
Centre: Stian Hole
Double page spread from Garmanns Sommer (Cappelen, 2006)
Bottom left: Toby Morrison
Illustration from Little Louis Takes Off (Simon & Schuster, 2007)
Bottom right: Maurizio Quarello
Ork, an unpublished illustration, exhitbited at the exhibition ‘Italian Illustrators Celebrate the Grimm Brothers’, Bologna, 2006