Here Is a Book
A Picture Book
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- $9.99
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- $9.99
Publisher Description
A love letter to books, showing how many elements and people contribute to making something beautiful, from Caldecott honoree Elisha Cooper
Multiple starred reviews: "An immediate classic."* / "Special...bringing the parts of the book together into one unified message."** / "A steo-by-step representation of how a book comes into being."***
In this poetic and beautifully illustrated ode to creativity and the process of making books, Caldecott honoree Elisha Cooper takes readers on a journey showing how words and art move from one person to another.
From writer to reader, and everyone who contributes in between: Here is a book, made with love.
An artist’s studio overflows with sketches, drafts, a wastebasket, and wonder.
A publisher’s office hums with computers, layouts, coffee, and teamwork.
A printer makes a layout into a book using presses, ink, paper, and time.
And that book travels to a school, to a library, to a student, to a home.
* Bulletin of the Center for Children's Books; **Booklist; ***Publishers Weekly
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
In a winningly granular work that shows how components make up a whole, Caldecott Honoree Cooper uses list-forward lines and thumbnail-like sketches to trace a book's creation, from inspiration onward. An artist, a tiny form briefly outlined, sits sketching outside a seaside cottage, penciled images flying forth. Indoors, her art studio overflows with "paper, pencils, watercolors, brushes, sketches, drafts, a wastebasket." Miniature vignettes show the figure painting, wielding a pencil, considering images on the wall. Finally, the finished manuscript heads to a publisher's office ("editors, designers, assistants") and then to a printer ("printing presses, binding machines, glue"). Sweeping vistas next follow the finished volume's journey to a city school library, where it at last reaches a reader. The child's imagination is set alight, and, surrounded by classic picture books, the reader sits down with a sketchbook and forms a new stream of images. It's a step-by-step representation of how a book comes into being, focused on how much depends on "teamwork, time, beauty, adventure, grit, inspiration, curiosity, action, structure, humor, wonder, and love." Characters are portrayed with various skin tones. Ages 4–8.
