Children's Books discussion
Illustrators
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Who Are Your Favorite Children's Illustrators?
A wonderful topic. Most of the time we fall in love with a book for both the illustrations and the text but all the praize goes to the writer. I love Audry and Don Wood and lately I cannot resist Emily Gravett's illustration.
Chandra mentioned some I unintentionally left off my list:Susan Jeffers
Trina Schart Hyman
Audrey and Don Wood
I also meant to include Garth Williams, who illustrated among other things the Little House books.
I know there are more, but I'm too lazy right now to go check my picture book section to see who did the illustrations.
Two of my favorite illustrators are Geoffrey Hayes and David Catrow. Hayes created those small, square Patrick books in the 1980s that were my sons' favorites. More recently, he illustrated Benny & Penny In Just Pretend. I also like pouring over the details in David Catrow's distorted illustrations in the Plantzilla books and this year his drawings in Smelly Locker: Silly Dilly School Songs.
I'm so glad someone mentioned the books by Audrey and Don Wood. The illustrations in their books always make me smile. Three of my faves? Napping House (trying to find the flea on each page is great fun), King Bidgood's in the Bathtub, and The Flying Dragon Room. Another favorite? David McPhail.
I also love Chris Van Allsburg: Mystery of Harris BurdickAlso Marla Frazee of "Seven Silly Eaters" and the "Clementine" series.
Hats of to David Weisner and Audrey and Don Wood too!
Yes! Chris Van Allsburg! The Garden Of Abdul Gasazi, The Sweetest Fig and The Widow's Broom are three of his best.
Some others no one has mentioned yet . . .Leo Lionni
Mo Willems
Lane Smith (of Lane Smith and Jon Scieszka fame)
Jon J. Muth
Oliver Jeffers (My latest favorite book is his story Lost and Found. The best illustrations are the ocean scenes and the final page -- love them!!)
Oooh, I know there are more, but my brain is drawing a blank . . .
Oh so many. Most recently David Weisner and Jill Pinkwater.
I loved Doris Burns' illustrations in Andrew Henry's Meadow. The detail was great and my son and I still find new things in the inventions.
Unfortunately I haven't read many picture books since I was little (early '90s..I know sooo long ago. haha) so I don't know what amazing illustrators have been around in the past 15 years. But here are the ones from my childhood that i loved. Chris Van Allsburg
Jan Brett
Garth Williams
Graeme Base
Tasha Tudor
Alix Berenzy
Laura Krauss Memlmed
Barbra Berger
Janelle Cannon
Janet Ahlberg
A few more faves: Bill Peet
David McPhail
Don Wood
Here's a list of my favorite children's illustrators:Henrik Drescher (Simon's Book and Pat the Beastie)
Audrey and Don Wood (The Napping House and Heckedy Peg)
Bill Peet (Big Bad Bruce and Hubert's Hair Raising Adventure)
Paul O. Zelinsky (Rumpelstiltskin and Swamp Angel)
James Marshall (Miss Nelson Is Missing! and Goldilocks And The Three Bears)
Chris Van Allsburg (The Polar Express and Jumanji)
Steven Kellogg (Chicken Little and The Day Jimmy's Boa Ate the Wash)
Babette Cole (Princess Smartypants and Dr. Dog)
Lane Smith (The Stinky Cheese Man and Other Fairly Stupid Tales and The True Story of the Three Little Pigs)
Marc Brown (Arthur's Eyes: An Arthur Adventure and Arthur Meets the President: An Arthur Adventure (Arthur Adventure Series))
Quentin Blake (Matilda and The BFG)
Maurice Sendak (Where the Wild Things Are and In the Night Kitchen)
Dr. Seuss (The Cat in the Hat and The Lorax)
Nancy Carlson (I Like Me! and Harriet's Halloween Candy)
David Wiesner (Tuesday and The Three Pigs)
Mo Williems (Knuffle Bunny: A Cautionary Tale and Don't Let the Pigeon Drive the Bus)
That is a really hard question. I think sometimes my favorites are not necessarily my son's favorites. (Me being quite girly-girl.) Before ds was born, I borrowed from the library a book a great illustrators, and I made a lot of choices from that.Off the top of my head:
Beatrix Potter
Demi (I don't own his/her books, but I salivate over them!)
Aliki
Don Wood (I think his wife Audrey writes the stories, according to the Book of Illustrators I read)
Akiko Hayashi
Maurice Sendak
Quentin Blake (appreciating him more now that we have read some Roald Dahl. DS seems to like him.)
Donald Crews
Jan Brett
Lucy Cousins
Brian Wildsmith
Eric Carle
Richard Scarry (On Saturday, I saw a shirt with his characters on it. It brought back memories!!! But it was thirty dollars.....)
Karen Katz
John Steptoe
omigosh, the list goes on and on. I can't stop.
The usual suspects have already been mentioned, so I'll just add one more favorite contemporary artist: Laurie Keller. (Arnie the Doughnut, Scrambled States, etc.)
Since reading the picture book Coolies
, Chris Soentpiet has become one of my favorite illustrators. My grandson has another book illustrated by Soentpiet, More Than Anything Else
, a wonderful book about a very young Booker T. Washington who longs to learn to read. I checked Soentpiet's website, http://www.soentpiet.com/, and his multicultural, award-winning illustrations really impressed me. There are several of his books that I want to find, especially Peacebound Trains
and Molly Bannaky
. Beautiful!
Barbara CooneyYuval Zommer
Scott Gustafson
Don daily
Charles Santore
Axel Scheffler
Robert Ingpen
Most of these illustrators did classic fairytales, so that probably helped sway my votes :)
And David Roberts. I just got his illustrated version of the wind in the willows and its gorgeous!
I have recently discovered The Fan Brothers, and their illustrations are beautiful. The Night Gardener, The Antlered Ship and Ocean Meets Sky, are some of their books.
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I also love the Fan Brothers!
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Trina Schart Hyman
Leonard Weisgard
Ruth Heller
Leo Dillon & Diane Dillon
Don Wood
Dan Santat
David Wiesner
Mo Willems
Terry Fan
Chris Van Allsburg
Demi
Jan Brett
Patricia Polacco (for the OP, for her Casey at the Bat: A Ballad of the Republic Sung in the Year 1888
etc....
Tomie de PaolaBeatrix Potter
Barbara Cooney
Tasha Tudor
Garth Williams
Arnold Lobel
Renée Graef
Lisa Papp (illustrator) Lisa Papp
Mandy Sutcliffe
Mercer Meyer
Marc Brown
Lois Lenski
Dan Andreason
Robert McCloskey
Allen Say
I don't know if bhe counts since he makes needlefelted characters and photographs them but Holman Wang is amazingly talented.
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Which reminds me, I'm also very impressed by Jeannie Baker's collages, for example Home.
There are many that I like, but Chris Riddell is definitely my favourite!
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Good old Quentin Blake is the tops. How he gets Queen Elizabeth so perfectly with his scribble style in The BFG blows me away. I admit I expressed loud vocal approval the first time I turned to that page.
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Ruth Sanderson: Cinderella and The Golden Mare, the Firebird, and the Magic Ring are two of my favorites.
Here are some of my favourite children's illustrators:Lynley Dodd (Author of Hairy Maclary from Donaldson's Dairy)
Judith Kerr (Author of The Tiger Who Came to Tea)
Chris Priestley (Author of Seven Ghosts)
Hey there! These are some of my favourite illustrators (apart from some that have already been mentioned): Alida Massari, Cicely Mary Barker, Pauline Baynes, Louis Slobodkin and the one and only J. R. R. Tolkien whose pictures from Letters from Father Christmas are esquisitly delightful, I just love them.
My all time favorite is Lynn Munsinger!
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I'm really liking Michaela Goade: she seems to turn up on everyyhing I want to read.
Barbara wrote: "One of my friends asked me this as a review comment, but I thought it was a topic that would interest many. It's really hard for me to come up with one favorite illustrator because there are so m..."
Yes, I agree a good illustrator makes all the difference! Call me dorky, but I wish more adult books had illustrations. In answer to your question, probably Bill Peet (who also did the movie The Sword in the Stone), Garth Williams (book Charlotte's Web, Little House on the Prairie) Liz Dauber, and Jan Brett.
Bernadette Watts (Mother Holly) & (Star Child) - with many, many other illustrations for The Brothers Grimm and Hans Christian Andersen. Marcus Pfister (The Rainbow Fish - series) - love the selection of hues in his watercolours - the blues are my fav.
Olivia Mokrzycki (Wesley Raccoon- series) - this is the young artist I used form my children's book - love her style, selection and soft use of whimsical watercolours.
Johanna Westerman (Wynken Blynken and Nod) - very mystical imagery - the dream state she creates is beautiful.
Rod Clement (Edward The Emu) - The vivid and fun images against his white backdrops make everything pop and come to life.
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I just discovered the older classic A House Is a House for Me and have added Betty Fraser to my list.
And it seems that I left off Astrid Lindgren's partner for many of her picture-books, Ilon Wikland.
Fraser and Wikland have in common with Joe & Beth Krush highly detailed drawings, often colored, with heartbreakingly beautiful children.
I don't know if anyone else is in Sacramento, CA area, but there is a show of Coretta Scott King winning illustrators starting Wednesday.
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We're Going on a Bear Hunt (by Michael Rosen) is also a great book that we loved when my sons were young, illustrated by the popular & talented Helen Oxenbury.
I LOVE Chris RiddellNeil Gaiman/Chris Riddell 3-Book Box Set: Coraline; The Graveyard Book; Fortunately, the Milk and Scott CampbellZombie in Love! <3
Cheryl wrote: "Looks like we forgot to mention Jan Ormerod, prolific writer and illustrator, one of my very favorites. Consider especially Sunshine & Moonlight..."I love her. I don't think she's that well-known in the US.
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I have so many favorites having been a children's librarian. I discovered Jan Brett's books years ago and consider her Christmas books must-reads every year during the Yuletide season whether there are children in my life or not. I read them for me expressly for the beautiful winter illustrations!
I still love Quentin Blake, and I still to this day, have to check that I spelt his first name properly!
Milinda wrote: "I still love Quentin Blake, and I still to this day, have to check that I spelt his first name properly!"He is a lot of fun and easily recognizable.
Children's Books
Books mentioned in this topic
The BFG (other topics)Letters from Father Christmas (other topics)
The Lorax (other topics)
Where the Wild Things Are (other topics)
Matilda (other topics)
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Authors mentioned in this topic
Quentin Blake (other topics)Mercer Mayer (other topics)
Natalie Babbitt (other topics)
Lois Lenski (other topics)
Trina Schart Hyman (other topics)
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It's really hard for me to come up with one favorite illustrator because there are so many kinds of illustrations -- black and white drawings, color paintings, and more. Since one of my favorite genres is the picture book, I see a number of wonderful illustrators. Some of my favorites are Thomas Locker, Patricia Polacco, Itoko Maeno (who illustrated Papa Piccolo),Robert McCloskey, Jan Brett, Bill Peet, Steven Kellogg, C.W. Anderson (Blaze books),Ruth Wright Paulsen -- Do I have to stop with those? I discover new illustrators often. I tend to favor the ones who do the painting, like Locker. But I like the humor that Polacco, Bill Peet, and Steven Kellogg inject.
An illustrator can make all the difference in a book. Example: Compare an edition of Casey at the Bat published by Dover (can't remember the illustrator, but the pictures were, if I remember, drawings showing an adult Casey) with the edition illustrated by Patricia Polacco. (This edition is not listed properly at goodreads, probably because it's not listed properly at Amazon. If anyone wants to see it listed properly with the correct author and cover art, let me know and I'll send a link. Don't know how to send an off-site link here to my scan of the cover.)Anyway, the Polacco illustrations practically make the same words into a different story. It changes the tone, makes Casey look like a "cool" teen, and makes it very humorous.
My favorite non-fiction children's illustrators are Gail Gibbons and Ruth Heller.
I know there are more I haven't mentioned, but no doubt someone else will mention them. I have to do some boring bookkeeping now.