Description
Temporarily out of stock
Title: Virginia Lee Burton: A Life in Art
Author: ELLEMAN BARBARA
Format: HARDCOVER
Publication date: 10/10/2002
Imprint: HOUGHTON MIFFLIN
Price: $44.00
Publishing status: Active
This book portrays the colorful, exuberant life of Burton, one of the classic writers and illustrators of children’s literature. The full description of the process by which she created her books \”Mike Mulligan and His Steam Shovel \”and \”The Little House,\” among other titles, is a major triumph of this outstanding biography. In addition to producing first-rate children’s books, Burton was a dancer, sculptor, musician, gardener, and mother. These aspects of her life are given their full due here. Interviews with Burton’s family and colleagues and lavish illustrations add much to the richness of the account. The author’s extensive bibliography (she consulted archives as well as published works) and detailed index round out the excellence manifest throughout the text. The author’s writing, moreover, is warm and incisive. Recommended for school and public libraries as well as for academic libraries with education departments. (Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2002, American Library Association.)
Publishers Weekly (10/14/2002):
Virginia Lee Burton: A Life in Art by Barbara Elleman looks at the artist close up, from her early stints as a dancer and newspaper illustrator, to the founding of Folly Cove Designers (where she was a top producer of hand-crafted textiles), to her career as a writer and illustrator of books for children. Family photos, original sketches and reproductions of Burton’s manuscripts (with text recorded by a manual typewriter) personalize the offering.
School Library Journal (12/01/2002):
The creator of Mike Mulligan and His Steam Shovel (1939) and The Little House (1942, both Houghton) played many roles during her too-brief life: dancer, artist, exacting designer and teacher, craftswoman, illustrator, shepherdess, wife, mother, and ebullient hostess. This appreciative biography portrays a gifted artist balancing a successful professional career with family responsibilities at a time when most women chose one over the other. Elleman examines Burton’s early work and investigates the genesis of each of her seven picture books, from Choo Choo (1937) to the epic, carefully researched Life Story (1962, both Houghton). She shows how Burton’s perfectionism shaped her art, which is characterized by organic movement, rooted in the rhythms of nature, and has \”survival through change\” as its constant theme. A generous selection of family photos and full-color art from Burton’s published and unpublished work, laid out in a handsome, open page design, accompanies the text. Research notes, an index, and an extensive bibliography are appended. This welcome tribute to a beloved artist should be a first purchase.-Margaret A. Chang, Massachusetts College of Liberal Arts, North Adams Copyright 2002 Cahners Business Information.
ISBN: 9780618003426