Reviewing the art of 5 Different Picture Books

 1. My Daddy is a Cowboy 

written by Stephanie Seales Illustrated by C.G Esperanza

Seales, Stephanie. My Daddy is a Cowboy. Illustrated by C. G. Esperanza, Abrams Books for Young Readers, 2024. 

First and foremost, I have to point out how beautifully illustrated this picture book is. Esperanza has truly captured a mood, atmosphere, and emotions by their use of color, contrast, texture, and shapes. Texture was among the very first aspects I noticed about this piece. Esperanza has chose to illustrate this book in a way that replicates the brush strokes and execution of oil painting or oil pastels, giving it a very artistic look. 

Esperanza uses color to create an instill the overall vibe and atmosphere of a each scene. But the two best example I saw were, using a light blue color on nearly the entirety of the page to signify the breaking of dawn, right before the sun rises. And her use of warm colors in scenes that take place within the living room of the main character's house. These use of warm colors also help establish with the audience that our main character comes from a mixed Afro/Latino home- both cultures that appreciate and predominately feature vivid bright colors. 

My only area of critique of the illustrations of this book is that sometimes having the pages be wall to wall with color with a lot of wayward and squiggly lines and shapes is a lot for the eye to look at. On some pages Esperanza manages to have all these elements and still convey a beautiful scene- such as the example to the top left. But on other pages, like the example on the bottom left, I felt as though there was a lot for the eye to look at without much break. Which can lead to a more muddled picture than intended. 

2. Moon Pops by Heena Baek

Paek, H., & Kiaer, J. (2021). Moon pops. Owlkids Books.

This book is an extremely sweet and endearing story told through an innovative process of creating cardboard figures an sets and photographing them. I found that aspect to be what makes this book ultimately successful in using its "illustrations" to capture tone and setting to effectively tell a story. 

In this interview with Owlkids publishing, Baek explained that as a child she loved to play pretend with her dollhouse and dolls, creating stories for them and acting them out. I love that this book is a reflection and continuation with that. It leaves readers feeling like they should go home and create their own stories too. For that reason, I love that the dolls and sets are made from cardboard and paper. This particularly is what gives it a sweet, endearing, charming feel. The artwork itself is very reminiscent to Eastern Animation. Of course this makes perfect sense as Baek is a Korean author and the this particular story is based off of Korean folklore. However, even the use of pictures of cardboard creatures and sets give it that stop-motion animation vibe. If I had to draw a more western comparison I'd say it's reminiscent of something like the Fantastic Mr. Fox film dir. by Wes Anderson. 

I also appreciated that the composition and position of the text with the pictures varied throughout the book. That is to say that sometimes the text was on the same page as the illustrations, sometimes it was on blank page, and sometimes it was underneath the illustration. This variation assured that the composition wasn't boring. Finally, and similarly to My Daddy is a Cowboy, this book takes place at night. The use of blues and greys to convey a summer night time were extremely effective as well as the pops of lights to convey the moon. 

3. Abuelo, the Sea, and Me written by Ismee Willams and Illustrated by Tatiana Gardel

Williams, I., & Gardel, T. (2024). Abuelo, the sea, and me. First edition. Roaring Brook Press.

Right away the calming tone of this book comes across on the very first page (and even from the cover). The soft colors of blues and yellows really work for me to establish a fuzzy feeling of spending time and learning about your grandparent. As a girl who loves and misses both of her grandpas, this one hit home! 

Gardel's choice of watercolors is also incredibly effective here. Not only does it match the motif of the sea and the beach, but the negative space that watercolor allows keeps the illustrations airy, light, and soothing. There is very little, if anything, in this book that is offensive to the eye. Colors compliment each other beautifully and help establish the changing of the season as well. 

My favorite detail of this books is the choice to make the clouds the shape of dolphins and marlins. We know from context clues that Abuelo is from Cuba. He mentions marlins and dolphins in the story, so this added touch to have them depicted in the clouds is particularly endearing. 

My only gripe with the illustrations is that there were a few instances where they felt a little flat or one dimensional. However, in the scenes were Gardel even used simple shading, that one-dimensionality was negated. I would have liked to see more shading on those more flat scenes, especially because this story is full of substance and beauty. 

Finally, I have to admire the use of color to convey character. For the majority of the book Abuelo wears more subdued colors. Blues, greys, greens, even the yellow he wears is a more dull yellow as opposed to a really bright one. Whereas the granddaughter is illustrated, in most scenes, as wearing orange and purples. These colors are typically associated with youth, personality, and attitude. So, in short, I liked that the older character wore more muted colors and the younger character wore the brighter colors to contrast their ages even more. 

Check out this video to see Ismee Williams read her book aloud!

4. Home in a Lunchbox by Cherry Mo

Mo, C. (2024). Home in a lunchbox. Penguin Workshop, an imprint of Penguin Random House LLC.

This book is great example of how you can use big contrast to convey emotion and story. Our main character Jun, is typically the only one drawn in full warm colors. Surrounding characters are drawn with dull colors that almost make it look like they are in black and white. 

Moreover, those warm colors are also used to show times and places where Jun feels happy. The inside of Jun's home is drawn in yellows and oranges while the outside is dull greys and blues. This also effectively conveys Jun's feeling of isolation because of her lack of English. Similarly, and the whole crux of the story, when Jun opens her lunchbox those warm colors spill out in addition to whimsical swirls and sparkles. These demonstrate feelings of happiness, sparks of joy, and specifically the flavors and aromas of her food that makes her feel at ease when the rest of the day makes her feel so out of place.

The characters and setting are certainly drawn in a cartoon style as oppose to realism. I think that's an extremely effective choice as it allows for the characters expressions to be overly exaggerated. This is important if you have a main character who does not speak a lot of English, and therefore cannot voice their feelings through words on the page. 

5. Chooch Helped written by Andrea L. Rogers and Illustrated by Rebecca Lee Kunz

Rogers, A. L., & Kunz, R. L. (2024). Chooch helped. Levine Querido.

I have to admit that I chose this book because the title stood out to me. Italian Americans use the word chooch as a slang term sometimes used affectionately (most times not) for someone who sort of acts like a dumb jerk. Needless to say I was very happy that's not what this book is about. And also found it interesting that Chooch comes from the Cherokee word "Atsusta" meaning boy or son. Certainly a much kinder interpretation. 

I also have to admit that of all the 5 books I reviewed for this blog entry, this one's illustrations were my least favorite. Kunz utilized a more sketch-like style that ultimately left illustrations looking unfinished and had a "scratchy" look to them. I also found the lack of detail in the characters face to hinder my ability to relate or empathize with them.  

The colors choices, and the tone choice of those colors, of some scenes led them to all sort of fade together, making it hard for the eye to discern where objects and the background began and ended. Additionally, Kunz utilized a style of using different patterns to fill some shapes like couches and blankets etc. Some times a page would have conflicting patterns right next to each other with no break in between. This is a lot for the eye to look at. This combined with the lack of definition on the characters faces themselves, led to the eye focusing more on the background or background objects than the characters themselves. Admittedly, I don't know enough about Cherokee culture to know if this art style and these patterns are intentional references to said culture. 

However, I would be remiss if I didn't mention the scenes and illustrations in this book that are absolutely beautiful. The first example can be seen to the top right of this text. The native artwork depicted here simply beautiful. But it's an example of how punching in those lines and colors can be so effective to convey the vividness and beauty of the art.

My last example of another success of illustrations in this book can be seen on the bottom right. The depictions of natural landscapes in this book are breathtaking. The use of colors, swirls, and sparkles to convey the sky is simply undeniably gorgeous. I actually like in this instance that the characters are shown as black silhouettes because it highlights the focus of the landscape and creates an overall mood and atmosphere. The light of the sun reflecting off the orange water only add to that. 

The majority of all of the landscapes in this book are beautiful. This could perhaps be a reflection of the Cherokee's views and cultural feelings towards the nature of the earth. But I still wished that every scene in this book had its colors as punched in and completed as that of the aforementioned pages.