Books &Disney &Peet 18 Mar 2009 08:06 am
So Dear #5
- Here’s the conclusion to the Little Golden StoryBook, So Dear To My Heart. The book is an adaptation, of course, of the movie by Helen Palmer with illustrations by Bill Peet.
At 128 pages, the book is quite long and chock full of gems by Bill Peet. It’s one of his first publications and shows a lot of the hallmark look he’ll have once he bagan writing and illustrating his own books, although they’re considerably shorter (averaging about 30 pages.) These ink and watercolor illustrations are all spot drawings and fill usually about a third of the page. The colors are limited with an inexpensive printing process used on inexpensive paper. At 5″ x 7″, the book is also a bit smaller than the usual Golden Book.
Here are the last two chapters:
(Click any image to enlarge.)
This drawing, alone, is worth the entire book. It’s beautiful and shows
Peet’s brilliance at capturing characters in a specific moment of time.
Most illustrators would probably have ended the book on this image of
the grand prize winner – such a temptation, the climax of the book.
Peet is character driven and knows that the book is about the boy.
The last image has to be a shot (did I say shot? this isn’t a film. I meant
to say) picture of the real hero of the story . . . the boy.
on 20 Mar 2009 at 8:47 am 1.Jerry Edwards said …
Thanks again for such a fun posting of the So Dear To My Heart Golden Story Book. As mentioned before, I did order the book. Since then, I have read and enjoyed it and it now has a place of honor next to all of Bill Peet’s picture story books. I bought this book because I also wanted to read the story to compare it to the film.