Monday, March 10, 2008

It's Nice to See Picture Books Getting Some Attention

This morning on NPR's Morning Edition there was a short segment on Jane O'Connor's Fancy Nancy series of picture books, illustrated by Robin Preiss Glasser (published by HarperCollins).

Although I've never been a "girly-girl," I've always been a free-thinking girl, much like Nancy. Reading Fancy Nancy for the first time brought to mind my favorite book from my childhood--Kay Thompson's Eloise in Paris. If you like Nancy, you'll love Eloise. Eloise has seen a resurgence of interest over the past few years. I suppose that's good, but I hated seeing her turn into a cartoony licensed character. Ah well...

I hope Nancy doesn't go too commercial, but it is nice to see the media paying attention to picture books by long time writers. I do however want to point out a mistake in the first book. Nancy says, "My favorite color is fuchsia. That's a fancy way of saying purple." Wrong, it's a fancy way of saying purple-pinky-red. I know because fuchsia's been my favorite color for a while now! Fuchsia is delightfully complex--just like little girls are!

--Diane

No comments: