Caldecott Medal Goes to Artist Beth Krommes
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By John A. Sellers -- Publishers Weekly, 1/29/2009
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Beth Krommes (l.), with Susan Marie Swanson, author of her Caldecott-winning book. Photo: Tom Hysell. |
So much so that she had already been to the gym that morning and was just sitting down at her home office, ready for “a really productive work day—which never did happen.” Because that’s when the phone rang, with Nell Colburn [chair of this year’s Caldecott Committee] on the other line. “I must have been on speakerphone, because I could hear all kinds of people in the background yelling and cheering,” Krommes recalled. The artist’s reaction? “Well, I cried a bit,” she said. “I couldn’t really say too much.”
During her 10-year career in children’s books, Krommes has received several awards for her artwork, including the SCBWI Golden Kite Award for The Lamp, the Ice, and the Boat Called Fish by Jacqueline Briggs Martin (Houghton, 2001), the ASPCA Henry Bergh Award for Butterfly Eyes and Other Secrets of the Meadow by Joyce Sidman (Houghton, 2006), as well as a number of Best Book and ALA Notable commendations. But she never expected this. “I don’t think I’ve really taken it in,” she said. “I feel like a newcomer to the industry. I trained as a fine artist, and I never thought I’d be here doing this.”
That training consisted of a BFA in painting from Syracuse University and a Masters in art education from the University of Massachusetts in Amherst. For her books, including The House in the Night, she has developed a technique in which she makes an archival photocopy of her black-and-white scratchboard illustrations onto archival paper. Then she adds color, using watercolors.
“Because of the way I’ve done all my books—doing the scratchboard first—a book will take a year, and only the last few weeks will be spent coloring the pictures in,” Krommes said. “I tend to get burned out at that point.” She recalled joking with Ann Rider, her longtime editor at Houghton, “If this were a black-and-white book I’d be done by now.” Krommes said that Rider had promised her a “black-and-white book,” but that they had to wait for the right manuscript. And in Susan Marie Swanson’s The House in the Night, they had it. “It really was perfect. It’s all about dark and light, day and night.” (With touches of yellow throughout, The House in the Night isn’t completely black and white, but it does use less color than Krommes’s previous books.)
Krommes and her family made a “whirl” of a trip to New York City for the Today Show, but headed right back home to Peterborough, Vt. The illustrator is eager to get back to work—she said she is interested in developing a line of Advent calendars as well as a possible second collaboration with Joyce Sidman.
However, there may be a bit of housekeeping to attend to first. “I will go home to probably 150 emails,” Krommes joked. “My town is going wild. There are only about 5,000 people in Peterborough and word spreads fast.”
