This month, all of the featured books are by one author/illustrator, Arthur Geisert, who uses the Old Masters’ printing method of copperplate etching to create his unusual books for children.
In Geisert’s THE ETCHER’S STUDIO, a boy helps his grandfather by adding color to black and white etchings. The story combines the boy’s day dreams with factual information about the numerous steps involved in making an etching. Older children will be fascinated by the description of the process, while young children will enjoy the detailed illustrations. This book is a perfect combination of information and imagination and will be appreciated by all ages.
An appropriate book for preschoolers is Geisert’s charming OINK. It is a story about a sow and her piglets, told using pictures plus one word, “Oink!” Since German and Spanish also use this word to indicate a pig’s voice, Geisert can claim to be the only author who can read his whole book simultaneously in three languages, a feat that Kindergarten students may want to imitate.
Many of Geisert’s books feature anthropomorphic pigs including ICE, named a 2011 New York Times Best Illustrated Book and was also a Parents’ Choice Gold Award Winner. This highly imaginative wordless story will be especially appealing to children who love to discover interesting -- and sometimes bizarre -- elements in pictures.
In another wordless book, THE GIANT SEED, Geisert’s strange little pigs plant a seed that drifts into their tiny homeland. The seed grows into a plant that provides the pigs with an ingenious escape from a natural disaster.
The landscape in Geisert’s 2013 picture book, THUNDERSTORM, reflects the rolling hills, winding roads, and temperamental skies of northeastern Iowa, where the artist lives in a small town. The only words in this book provide a time-line, beginning on a Saturday at 12:15 PM and ending at 6:15 the same day. In between is a feast for inquisitive eyes, as a violent storm sweeps across the farm land, leaving damaged buildings in its wake. Children will be reassured as they follow the progress of a family in a red pickup truck, pulling a wagon load of hay. Despite the wild weather, the farm family perseveres, helping others and being helped, until the final satisfyingly peaceful scene. Although the tornado depicted might frighten little kids, fourth and fifth graders will appreciate the determined, cooperative spirit of the inhabitants of the unpredictable Midwestern countryside.
Sheila Kelly Welch is a mother, grandmother and retired teacher. She’s been writing all her life and counts among her children’s fiction books Little Prince Know-It-All and A Horse for All Seasons. Sheila's most recent book, WAITING TO FORGET, published by namelos, has been selected by Bank Street College and Pennsylvania School Library Association for their lists of best-books-of-the-year.
You can learn more about Sheila on her web site.
