Tuesday, July 26, 2011

A Beautiful Book: Aunt Green, Aunt Brown, and Aunt Lavender


I'm a definite glutton for beautiful children's illustrations. Thankfully, there's no lack of wonderful children's pictures. And while I love browsing through the Caldecott winners and honored books (wouldn't it be fun to be part of the committee that decides on the nominations each year?) some of my favorites have been more obscure.

I thought it might be fun to run an occasional series featuring some of the books I think are especially lovely.  (And of course, it would be AMAZING if I could convince some of you to chime in with the titles of good ones that you've discovered.)

Aunt Green, Aunt Brown, and Aunt Lavender is actually the first of a series of books by Swedish author Elsa Beskow.  Peter and Lotty are the main characters running through the series, but in this first book you get the fun of being introduced to the aunts who (delightfully) only busy themselves with activities centering around their respective colors (Aunt Lavender makes berry jam; Aunt Brown bakes gingerbread; Aunt Green gardens, etc)

Here is a peek at the illustrations:




Each full page illustration faces a page of text that is decorated with jaunty silhouettes.  It really works well as an overall effect.   

3 comments:

maryanne @ mama smiles said...

I love the silhouette illustrations!

Teamwylie said...

We recently read Roxaboxen by Alice Mclerran, illustrated by Barbara Cooney. I was drawn to it b/c I loved Barbara Cooney's illustrations in Miss Rumphius but ended up really loving the story as well as the illustrations. 

Having Fun at Home said...

ohhh, fun recommendation.  I liked Miss Rumphius as well; I'll have to look up Roxaboxen.