Caldecott Monday: Song of the Swallows
Aug. 29th, 2016 09:24 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
osprey_archerThe illustrations in Leo Politi's Song of the Swallows remind me a bit of Tomie dePaolo's, which is probably a plus for someone else, although I never liked Tomie dePaolo's books as a child. Although that may have been because his characters had the unfortunate habit of dying at the end, like that poor juggler who juggles all his life and becomes a beggar when he loses his juggling facilities and then he's all tragic and ragged EXCEPT then he meets the baby Jesus and then juggles again as he juggled as a young man and then he falls down DEAD.
And then there's baby Jesus, smiling beatifically and holding the juggler's prize juggling ball. I suppose he's blessing the juggler or something but I was kind of stuck on THE JUGGLER IS DEAD.
I may not have remembered this perfectly. This was one of the first books to go during the Great Picture Book Sorting.
Anyway. I don't actually have much to say about Song of the Swallows, as you may have guessed from my Tomie dePaolo digression. The garden illustrations are charming and colorful, although they tend toward big blocks of color rather than the intricately detailed style that I prefer.
I also suspect that the book's explanation of the early California mission churches is highly romanticized, but I don't know much about them so that's just an educated guess.
And then there's baby Jesus, smiling beatifically and holding the juggler's prize juggling ball. I suppose he's blessing the juggler or something but I was kind of stuck on THE JUGGLER IS DEAD.
I may not have remembered this perfectly. This was one of the first books to go during the Great Picture Book Sorting.
Anyway. I don't actually have much to say about Song of the Swallows, as you may have guessed from my Tomie dePaolo digression. The garden illustrations are charming and colorful, although they tend toward big blocks of color rather than the intricately detailed style that I prefer.
I also suspect that the book's explanation of the early California mission churches is highly romanticized, but I don't know much about them so that's just an educated guess.
