Tag Archives: black

This Is Not My Hat

17 October 2012

16 Comments

by Jon Klassen

So I love this book. Like, the “well, why don’t you marry it?!” kind of love.

I read it in June at the Candlewick Booth at ALA. The people were lining up to meet Gary Ross (Big! The Hunger Games! Seabiscuit, even!) and I was huddled over F and Gs of this book with my friend, Dianne de Las Casas. We giggled and poked and and pointed and just delighted over this thing.

And then in August at the SCBWI Illlustrator’s Intensive, Jon Klassen shared an earlier draft of this book. It had a different title, different characters, but the same charm and an even more wicked sense of humor.

It was like I had run away with the Hope Diamond and the Smithsonian security guards just nodded and let me escape. (Ask me about the time my dad chaperoned the 5th grade field trip and one of the boys smuggled a whoopee cushion into the Natural History museum.)

Anyway. Seeing his process was capital UNREAL.

A fish. A stolen hat. A sleeper. Awakes. A chase. A resolution?

Jon Klassen’s art is both dazzling and understated. This book, like I Want My Hat Back, has a desaturated and limited color palette. But here, the black and white helps tell this stark story.

The gutter separates the white space for the text from the black of the ocean depths. Or on a spread dominated by the deep, the text is bound to a crisp horizontal stripe at the top.

And the characters themselves are quite a different pair. The massive victim fish that quietly exacts revenge contrasts the tiny, hat-stealing, filmflammy fish.

Would the story be as fantastic if their size was more similar or if the colors were not so vastly different?

Knowing Jon Klassen, probably. But do those decisions perfect this book? Absolutely.

Check out this hysterical interview with Jon Klassen over at Travis Jonkers’ blog, 100 Scope Notes. And this post, from the Horn Book’s Calling Caldecott blog, written by Lolly Robinson. Both of these blogs should take up residence in your mess of bookmarks, by the way! Always smart, always impeccable taste.

And the trailer! Mesmerizing.

Black on White

23 October 2011

2 Comments

Tana Hoban‘s board and concept books have been in the hands of bitty ones since 1970. This particular one, Black on White, is page after page of (duh) black and white images. Some are simpler than others, and most are basic objects already familiar to kids. Plus, can you ever go wrong with an elephant?

No. And I think he agrees.

An infant’s underdeveloped eyes and brain will respond to high contrast images prior to images with color, so despite its seeming restraint, this book is a visual wonderland for the very young.

ELEMENT OF DESIGN: CONTRAST

Two differing elements create contrast. We’ll go ahead and consider black and white to be colors, to avoid any color-theory-nitty-gritty arguing on a Sunday. That hurts the brain a little too much. And clearly, black is very dark, and white is very bright. When together, black and white represent the highest contrast. No shades of gray exist in between to ease the gradient and tone down the contrast. Black on White is created in high level, fundamental contrast. Your babes will go nuts.

M.C. Escher is a master of contrast.

So is Tana Hoban.