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  • Books Received
  • Mark I. West

Artist to Artist: 23 Major Illustrators Talk to Children about Their Art. Edited by David Briggs, Courtney Palmer, and Kiffin Steurer. New York: Philomel Books, 2007.

A project of the Eric Carle Museum of Picture Book Art, this anthology features brief essays by twenty-three contemporary illustrators of picture books. Among the illustrators included are Mitsumasa Anno, Quentin Blake, Nancy Ekholm Burkert, Leo Lionni, Jerry Pinkney, Alice Provensen, Maurice Sendak, Chris Van Allsburg, and Rosemary Wells. Each essay includes relevant illustrations. Although these essays are intended for children, there is much in this book that would be of interest to adult readers.

A Boy Named Shel: The Life and Times of Shel Silverstein. By Lisa Rogak. New York: Thomas Dunne Books/St. Martin's Press, 2007.

In this lively biography of Shel Silverstein, Lisa Rogak tells the stories behind the creation of Silverstein's famous children's books, including The Giving Tree, Where the Sidewalk Ends, and A Light in the Attic. However, she also covers his adolescent years in Chicago, his career as a cartoonist, his contributions to country music, and his relationship with his daughter, who died at the young age of eleven. Rogak is more interested in covering details of Silverstein's life than she is in discussing his literary works, but for readers who want to know more about the man who penned some of the most popular poems ever written for children, this biography is an excellent place to start.

Golden Legacy: How Golden Books Won Children's Hearts, Changed Publishing Forever, and Became an American Icon Along the Way. By Leonard S. Marcus. New York: Golden Books/Random House, 2007.

The release of this homage to Golden Books was timed to coincide with the sixty-fifth anniversary of the publication of the first Little Golden Book, which came out in 1942. Leonard Marcus provides a detailed and lavishly illustrated history of the Golden Books. As he explains, some of the major authors and illustrators in the children's literature world got their starts with Golden Books, including Margaret Wise Brown, Feodor Rojankovsky, Richard Scarry, and Garth Williams.

Psychoanalytic Responses to Children's Literature. By Lucy Rollin and Mark I. West. Jefferson, NC: McFarland, 2008 (paperback edition). [End Page 207]

McFarland published the original hardback edition of this book in 1999, but it is now releasing a paperback edition that is appropriately priced for use as a text in children's literature courses. This book includes psychoanalytic interpretations of numerous children's books, including James and the Giant Peach, Harriet the Spy, The Wind in the Willows, Charlotte's Web, Pinocchio, and The Prince and the Pauper. [End Page 208]

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