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Helen Oxenbury: A Life in Illustration

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Helen Oxenbury: A Life in Illustration

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Hardcover
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Overview

A fascinating, beautiful, and definitive account of the life of esteemed artist Helen Oxenbury.

Filled with insights that span Helen Oxenbury's life — from her early childhood through a career in children's books that started in the 1960s and is still going strong today — here is an exquisitely designed and thoroughly entertaining celebration of one of the finest illustrators of our time. Written by acclaimed author Leonard S. Marcus, Helen Oxenbury: A Life in Illustration is a keepsake that is sure to engage and delight everyone from scholars to art aficionados, as well as the many fans who have grown up with Helen Oxenbury’s enchanting books.

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About the Author

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780763692582
Publisher:	Candlewick Press
Publication date:	04/09/2019
Pages:	256
Product dimensions:	9.40(w) x 10.70(h) x 1.50(d)

About the Author

Leonard S. Marcus is one of the world’s leading writers about children's books and their illustration. His many books include The Wand in the Word: Conversations with Writers of Fantasy; Funny Business: Conversations with Writers of Comedy; Show Me a Story! Why Picture Books Matter: Conversations with 21 of the World’s Most Celebrated Illustrators; and Comics Confidential: Thirteen Graphic Novelists Talk Story, Craft, and Life Outside the Box. His essays, interviews, and reviews appear in the New York Times Book Review and the Horn Bookmagazine. He also teaches children's literature and child development at New York University. Leonard Marcus lives in Brooklyn, New York.

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Editorial Reviews

★ 02/25/2019
Children’s literature historian Marcus (Golden Legacy: The Story of Golden Books) presents an eloquent, sumptuously illustrated account of the life and work of versatile, prolific British illustrator Helen Oxenbury. Taking leave of Oxenbury after interviewing her in 1989, Marcus recalls, “It struck me that the artist I had just met was very much the person I had already encountered in the pages of her books.” Reproductions of art from those books appear with photos and Marcus’s astute commentary to shape a portrait that seamlessly fuses Oxenbury’s personal and professional sensibilities. The narrative reveals the working mother (she has three children with late author and illustrator John Burningham) “stealing time for work at the kitchen table” and breaking publishing ground with board books featuring realistic illustrations of babies, created for then-fledgling publisher Sebastian Walker. Marcus accessibly chronicles the evolution of Oxenbury’s art and creative output against the backdrop of the burgeoning children’s publishing industry worldwide. Further enhancing the book are warm testimonies from Oxenbury collaborators Trish Cooke, Mem Fox, Phyllis Root, Michael Rosen, and Martin Waddell. Deftly capturing Oxenbury’s grace, artistic brilliance, and humor, this handsome volume offers an affectionate and substantive tribute. Final art not seen by PW. All ages. (Apr.)

Publishers Weekly

Children’s literature historian Marcus (Golden Legacy: The Story of Golden Books) presents an eloquent, sumptuously illustrated account of the life and work of versatile, prolific British illustrator Helen Oxenbury...Further enhancing the book are warm testimonies from Oxenbury collaborators Trish Cooke, Mem Fox, Phyllis Root, Michael Rosen, and Martin Waddell. Deftly capturing Oxenbury’s grace, artistic brilliance, and humor, this handsome volume offers an affectionate and substantive tribute.
—Publishers Weekly (starred review)

A sumptuously illustrated biography of a grande dame of children's literature. Marcus brings his formidable talents as a children's-literature historian to this title, which both documents and honors the distinguished career of British illustrator Helen Oxenbury...Postscript tributes from some of her collaborators over the years—Trish Cooke, Mem Fox, Phyllis Root, Rosen, and Martin Waddell—are the cherry on top to Marcus' thorough scholarship, which culminates with an exhaustive bibliography/timeline of Oxenbury's 88 published works.
—Kirkus Reviews

Children’s literature scholar Leonard Marcus tracks the personal and professional life of famed illustrator Helen Oxenbury...Oxenbury’s illustrations are on full display with reprints from her books stretching across full spreads and serving as spot art, all elegantly laid out to support the text.
—Bulletin of the Center for Children's Books

The book’s production values are nothing less than sumptuous; the generous trim size provides a stunning stage for the pages and pages devoted to reprinting art from Oxenbury’s picture books; and despite the adulatory tone, Marcus’s underlying scholarship provides context for Oxenbury’s career at every step. A valuable keepsake for Oxenbury admirers.
—The Horn Book

From the Publisher

08/01/2019
Picture book lovers will delight in this elegant, entertaining, and insightful look at the life and career of one of the preeminent creators of the art form. For more than 50 years, Oxenbury's name has been synonymous with the best of what is being published for young audiences, from infancy and toddlerhood to school age and beyond. Her books have resonated as deeply with the adults reading them as they have with her young subjects. While simple in form, they are psychologically spot-on and warmly humorous. Marcus recounts Oxenbury's early years, influences, and development as they have informed her creative endeavors. In describing "a life in illustration," the author demonstrates how Oxenbury has been at the nexus of the evolution of the publishing industry over the past half century into the global enterprise that it became today. The book is chock-full of photographs and glorious full-color reproductions from many of the artist's most beloved works. VERDICT Like a rock star's greatest hits album, this lovely oversize volume will enchant Oxenbury's many fans and be revisited time and again.—Luann Toth, School Library Journal

School Library Journal

2019-01-28
A sumptuously illustrated biography of a grande dame of children's literature.
Marcus brings his formidable talents as a children's-literature historian to this title, which both documents and honors the distinguished career of British illustrator Helen Oxenbury. With typography lifted right from one of her most famous titles, Michael Rosen's We're Going on a Bear Hunt (1989), and illustrations and/or photographs decorating every spread, each element of the book's design and content contributes to a cohesive, flattering tribute to its subject. And while its large trim size emulates a typical picture book's dimensions, the book's 288 pages allow ample space for indulging in textual and visual detail about Oxenbury's early life, education, and career. Those details include everything from drawings created during her childhood in Ipswich through her art school courtship with her future husband, the late John Burningham ("Happily for the relationship that became their marriage, she thought him the better artist and he thought the same about her"), to her instrumental role in developing the board book as we know it today and her inclusive efforts at representing racial diversity through her art. Postscript tributes from some of her collaborators over the years—Trish Cooke, Mem Fox, Phyllis Root, Rosen, and Martin Waddell—are the cherry on top to Marcus' thorough scholarship, which culminates with an exhaustive bibliography/timeline of Oxenbury's 88 published works.
Illustrious in both subject and execution.

Kirkus Reviews

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