#Children’s book

[sleepy-bebby]

Top left clockwise: Keith groover, Jordan Simons, Bret Crow, Harry Hansen

[gooberscollage]

Illustrations from The Ant And The Pigeon by Lev Tolstoy (1988) - Illustrations by Mikhail Komadin

[vintage-tigre]

[lepetitdragonvert]

Sommervögel

1921

Author and illustrator : Ernst Kreidolf

[emmbrr]

a family of bears

[thebeautifulbook]

ONCE UPON A TIME: A Book of Old-Time Fairy Tales by Katharine Lee Bates (Chicago: Rand McNally, c1921) Illustrated by Margaret Evans Price.

[umbrellainkart]

I had the opportunity to draft a children’s book for my illustration class! Due to time constraints I couldn’t flesh it out further, but I’m very satisfied with what I had. Sensory sensitivities can be a nightmare, especially as a child, and it was certainly one of my biggest hurdles as a kid. I’m glad to have the opportunity to have worked on something so personal!

[seaofthemind]

I’ve been hovering on the edge of the Batman fandom since late 2020/early 2021, but it’s only in the last year that I’ve really fallen into it. As a British Millennial one thing that occasionally bugs me is the attitude towards Dick’s name. Primarily in fan fiction, but also occasionally in discourse.

I make a note of British as this definitely one of those cultural differences between UK and USA…

Dick is a normal name/nickname! Yes, it has gone out of fashion in the last couple of decades (influence of Americanisation?) but it is still around.

I remember two people with the name Dick growing up. Not my generation, admittedly. One was my parents’ age and one was my grandparents’ age. But the older one was a close family friend who we would see all the time. (I do think there was a Dick in first school with me, but I might be misremembering so I’m not technically counting it).

I was also an avid reader as a kid and read a lot of popular British children’s books. Off the top of my head the characters I can remember with the name Dick? Dick Bettany (Chalet School), Dick Callum (Arthur Ransome Books) and Dick (Famous Five). I’m sure there was more. Needless to say this name was still relatively normalised for British kids in the 90s-00s even if it was going out of fashion as an actual name.

I feel like it is a very recent (hello, American internet) thing that the name has become so improper/awkward. Not helped by modern filtering which will recognise it as only a “bad” word.

Anyway, to bring this to a point - in fan fiction it always seems to be “Parents didn’t speak English/didn’t know what it meant”, which is a reason but always feels way overused as a excuse (and where does the idea that his parents’ don’t speak English come from? Have I just missed this in the comics somewhere?).

There are many other reasons for Dick to have the name he does without it getting put down to a “language barrier”: Why not just that they were in a more culturally diverse community and the British nickname was acceptable (especially as much of Europe tends to lean more to British English than American English)? Why not be because a relative/friend also was called that and he was called after them? That his parents liked a book/media character with that name? That “Dickie” as a young child’s nickname is cute but that his parents assumed he would grow out of it as he grew up - but he never did because they died and that’s what they called him? Just that this is what his parents called him and it doesn’t need excuses?

Also Alfred? Would recognise it as a potentially awkward name for modern times but he isn’t going to find anything wrong with it as a name or have problems with using it (other than the politeness of using a nickname vs full first name). With his age & background he probably has known plenty of people in his life that have used it.

In short: let Dick have his name (without that undertone of him apologising for his parents not understanding).

[bookymcbookface]

Tehanu, by Ursula K Le Guin

[bowlersandtophats]

I recently illustrated a children’s book cover for a new local author. Rory & Babb: The Whispering Wave by Kelley Counts

Available on Amazon in physical format and digitally on Kindle

[sahmei]

An excerpt from the Little Prince by Antoine de Saint-Exupéry.

20” x 8”

Watercolors and pastels on paper

[thesunxlx]

Some style experiments 🥫☎️🛷

see exclusive content and previews on Patreon shop stickers and art prints watch my process videos

[lepetitdragonvert]

Une sirène chez les hommes par Mimei Ogawa (1882-1961)

L’école des Loisirs

2009

Artist : Komako Sakai (b. 1966)

[campsis]

llustrations by Barbara Cooney from “I Am Cherry Alive, The Little Girl Sang", by Delmore Schwartz, 1958 (@kidlitillos)