You Are, Aren't You?

The poet and children's novelist Michael Rosen, the former Children's Laureate of the United Kingdom, is a force of nature. A good starting point for your youngster is We're Going On A Bear Hunt. My friends at the Eric Carle agreed with me about Mr. Rosen. The Carle had already featured Quentin Blake's art from Michael Rosen's Sad Book at their museum. I was very happy when Nick Clark and The Carle agreed to showcase art work from Mr. Rosen's only YA illustrated novel The Golem Of Old Prague for my show Monsters and Miracles. In 1997, a version of the book was published by Five Leaves Press with illustrations by Baruch Simons.

Ross Bradshaw, the genius behind Five Leaves has an incredible story and is a truly nice soul to boot. Check out his website at http://www.fiveleaves.co.uk/. Mr. Bradshaw has always been very supportive of my ideas (starting with my attempts to bring an Isaac Bashevis Singer exhibition to the United Kingdom). He immediately embraced my efforts to have republished Academy Award winner Frederic Raphael's masterpiece Lindmann. Ross also helped me in the process of tracking down Mr. Rosen and Mr. Simons. From the popular to the obscure, Ross follows his own heart to unearth or republish some great books including a few collections of Michael Rosen's early poetry.

I was honored that Mr. Rosen accepted our invitation to visit the Eric Carle Museum on November 6, 2010. Mr. Rosen participated in an amazing talk with former National Ambassador for Young People's Literature Katherine Paterson.

Prior to his visit to the States I asked Mr. Rosen about his interest in the legend of the Golem. He told me:

The history of Jews in Europe is a complex one and when I came across the Golem stories, I became fascinated by the ways in which they talked of how the Jewish minority (and perhaps any minority) survives. It seemed to me that even though the stories have the simplicity of folk stories, as a whole they conveyed some of the complexity. In particular, I loved the mix in tone that the stories convey: wit, cunning, fear, eeriness, wisdom, fallibility, mystery, magic and more. In my retelling, I created dialogue and inner thought to give the stories a little more body, a little more of realism than was in the tellings I drew on. I wanted readers to feel the power of the confrontations that occur throughout the story-cycle.

Thank you Mr. Rosen for supporting my exhibition. We look forward to your next tour of the USA.

Toons To Stroll Down Memory Lane With

The Pulitzer Prize-winning artist and writer Art Spiegelman never ceases to amaze me. His 2009 anthology The TOON Treasury of Classic Children's Comics is an extraordinary walk down memory lane. Spiegelman's Golden Age finds for the book are stunning. The introductions that he and his wife Françoise provide in the anthology are insightful. Jon Scieszka's preface gets the ball rolling. It was great to see that our first National Ambassador for Young People's Literature embraced this important project. And now with the recent release of Craig Yoe's Golden Collection of Klassic Krazy Kool Kids Komics I hope we can permanently fix the spotlight on some of these truly wacky, wonderful strips. The Spiegelman and Yoe anthologies are perfect companions. Hopefully Mo "Knuffle Bunny" Willems presence and blessing of the Yoe anthology will also draw new readers back to these classic comics.

Spiegelman and his wife really care about young readers and their new Toon Books project is a dazzler. Their website http://www.toonbooks.com/ provides a handy introduction to their series.

If you ever have a chance to see Art Spiegelman's work up close it is well worth the pilgrimage. His entire "Prince Rooster" story from the pages of LIttle Lit appears in my Monsters and Miracles exhibition at the Skirball Cultural Center in Los Angeles and the Eric Carle Museum of Picture Book Art in Amherst. The Spiegelman work on display is powerful and you can clearly see a master artist and storyteller at the height of his powers. Mr. Spiegelman was kind and generous enough to provide me with some additional insight into his work. You can read more about Art Spiegelman, Maurice Sendak and others in my essay for the Monsters and Miracles exhibition catalogue. It is a gorgeous book that the Eric Carle printed in Italy.