A Magical Wordsmith and a Kaleidescoping Artist

Mon, 10/03/2016 - 2:31pm by mansii

What happens when one of the most cherished children's authors of all time gets written about by one of the most creative book illustrators of all time? You get Some Writer! The Story of E.B. White. Caldecott winning artist Melissa Sweet, who creates unique scrap-booked worlds of kaleidoscopic color, depicts the creator of Charlotte's Web and Stuart Little in a biography written for the young, but treasured by all.

E.B. White is known as a wordsmith like no other, using one choice phrase to paint whole, vivid pictures. His works are fantastical, blending the impossible with the ordinary so smoothly that we might easily believe he paints the real world while we are the ones dreaming. His characters may not aggrandize wealth or change the world, but they are rich in kindness, brave in friendship, and they transform homesteads and barns into places of hope and joy. Given the stamp of approval by White’s grand-daughter Martha White, Sweet reveals how White's three novels and numerous writings for the New Yorker came to be. She pays special attention to how the details of White's "real life" shaped the fictional worlds he spun. Especially with the numerous photographs, illustrations from the original books, letter excerpts, and draft excerpts that Sweet includes, reading this book feels like meeting a friend.

Melissa Sweet's illustrations are filled with details you can linger over, and images that have an atmospheric quality that let's you immerse yourself in White's world. Her words celebrate a man who had an appreciation for the miracles of nature, a reverence for life, and a passion to tell straight what bubbles out of ones heart, without trying to please the crowds.