Mondays with Mira: Wonderful Books from Paul O. Zelinsky

Some illustrators have 1 or 2 recognizable styles, which is generally recommended so that the publisher knows what they'll be getting. But then there are people like Paul O. Zelinksy, who you might call a Renaissance man because of his different styles and facility with using different materials.

When I had the good fortune of interviewing Paul for our Craft and Business of Illustrating Children's Books course, I asked him about this and he basically said that he lets the story dictate the style and materials. I imagine that because he's a best-selling multi Caldecott honoree as well as a Caldecott winner (the highest award for children's book illustration) Paul can pretty much do whatever he wants because whoever hires him knows that he'll go above and beyond to do something extraordinary (hence the Caldecotts).

A spectacular example of this is The Wheels on the Bus, which Paul adapted and illustrated 25 years ago and which is being reissued with a new cover for it's 25th anniversary. I LOVE this book so much that I made a little video review of it. I hope that you'll share it so that others can learn about this great mentor text where Paul visually shares not only his craft but also his multi-layered super smart, culturally pluralistic visual storytelling above and beyond the words. It's quite extraordinary (I keep using that word).

I also wanted to give a shout out to a couple of other books by Paul so you can get a glimpse at his virtuousity:

To get a sense of how truly funny Paul is, you have to check out the illustrations in this delightful and meaningful book. The other thing to note in it, is how brilliantly Paul conveys emotion in animals both through body language and expressions. He's a soulful and wonderful man who still amazingly enough does school visits. And for those up for a further adventure, here's a fabulous conversation with Brian Selznik where you get a sense of Paul wit: http://worldvoices.pen.org/flavor-words-brian-selznick-and-paul-o-zelinsky-correspondence

If you have time, I really encourage you to find out more about Paul O. Zelinsky and his MANY books right here  http://paulozelinsky.com

Comments are always welcome!