This week, Wolf Erlbruch accepts the Astrid Lindgren Memorial Award; former President Obama appreciates cows that type; Jeanne Walker Harvey celebrates her new book with her two sons; and author Douglas Todd Jennerich and illustrator Kate Berube are over the moon.
A Luminary Honored
German children’s book author and illustrator Wolf Erlbruch accepted the Astrid Lindgren Memorial Award on May 29 at the Stockholm Concert Hall in Stockholm, Sweden. In his acceptance speech, Erlbruch spoke about some of the joys and challenges of illustrating, saying: “To start reading a new manuscript is like entering a foreign country. You know nobody.” He also added that “some texts more or less illustrate themselves. Then there is poetry, which is impossible to translate.” Performances at the event included a dance adaptation of Erlbruch’s Duck, Death and the Tulip.
Click, Clack, Moo, We Miss You
While on tour earlier this month for her latest book, Cyclone, author-illustrator Doreen Cronin made a school visit to Wyoming Middle School in Cincinnati, Ohio, for an event hosted by Blue Manatee Bookstore. During Cronin’s presentation, she showed a clip of former President Obama purchasing a copy of Cronin’s A Barnyard Collection: Click, Clack, Moo and More from Politics and Prose, during one of his indie bookstore visits. She also displayed this (only slightly doctored up) image of the president.
Family Ties
Jeanne Walker Harvey recently celebrated the release of her new picture book, Maya Lin: Artist-Architect of Light and Lines (Holt/Ottaviano), illustrated by Dow Phumiruk, at Studio 333 in Sausalito, Calif., where she has a writing loft. Among the guests at the event were Harvey’s two sons, seen here with the author.
To the Half-Moon!
Illustrator Kate Berube and debut author Douglas Todd Jennerich celebrated the launch of their picture book, My Little Half-Moon (Putnam), at Powell’s on Hawthorne in Portland, Ore., on May 20. The location was particularly appropriate, as Berube is a former Powell’s bookseller.
