Wendell Minor: Twenty-Five Years Of Book Cover Art

Rating:
Summary: Spectacular collection of award-winning cover art
Review: I first fell in love with the art of Wendell Minor while I was reading books by the children's nature writer Jean Craighead George. Spectacular watercolor art added a new dimension to Ms. George's stories about the Arctic (like ARCTIC SON and SNOW BEAR), the Everglades (EVERGLADES), great horned owls (THE MOON OF THE OWLS), and wildlife throughout the country (MORNING, NOON, AND NIGHT). In each new book that I read, the colors were rich and the illustrations accurately portrayed the worlds which the author was describing. Then, as I came to recognize Minor's distinct, one-of-a-kind type of art, his work suddenly began to show up everywhere, in innumberable picture books and emblazoned on book covers. Now many of the book jackets in the bookstores and libraries don't seem as if they're scattered around in disorginization, out of view because the spines are facing outward on the shelves, or hard to find because the book might have gone out-of-print. That's because, to my relief and delight, there's a whole book of Wendell Minor's book jackets that have been compiled over the past twenty-five years. ART FOR THE WRITTEN WORD contains more than 100 of Minor's astounding watercolor, acrylic, and oil paintings. His distinguished work has appeared on a wide range of novels--fiction, nonfiction, biographies, thrillers, humor, cookbooks, natural history--many of them well-known stories by some bestselling authors. The artwork is reproduced in full-color on the oversized pages. There are pictures of famous people, houses, landscapes, wildlife, midwestern farms, towns, cities, wide open skies, automobiles, and scenes from the stories behind the covers. All of them are carefully rendered, detailed and thoughtful. You can look at a painting many times and each time notice something new. Along with the gallery of artwork, there's plenty of commentary from the people who wrote the stories that lie between the covers. Most of the authors' comments are filled with admiration and gratitude that the literature they spent so much time creating wasn't marred by an ugly or false jacket illustration. Some of the authors whose book covers are featured include David McCullough (who writes an excellent introduction), Ray Bradbury, Harper Lee, Garrison Keillor, Sherman Alexie, Mildred D. Taylor, Eve Bunting, Mary Higgins Clark, Pat Conroy, Toni Morrison, Patricia MacLachlan, Martin Cruz Smith, Elizabeth Marshall Thomas, and countless others. They all basically agree that they were proud and thankful that Wendell Minor did the covers for their books; he read the stories and researched his topics before making the illustrations and contributed to the success of their books. Many of them have added his jacket art to their private collections, sworn never to discard a Wendell Minor book jacket, and shown off their "most prized possessions" to friends and family. Some comments are just gushing with elation, like two letters, placed 17 years apart, from John Jerome, who was obviously delighted that Minor so accurately depicted the blue pick-up truck for his book TRUCK. Garrison Keillor lends his kind of "Prairie Home Companion" lightness to his story of the covers for his books WE ARE STILL MARRIED and WLT: A RADIO ROMANCE. Some illustrations--like the ones for Nancy Price's SLEEPING WITH THE ENEMY and C.J. Koch's THE DOUBLEMAN--seem to have almost subliminal meanings. WHERE ARE THE CHILDREN? and Brooks Stanwood's THE SEVENTH CHILD are quite frightening, while W.P. Kinsella's THE DIXON CORNBELT LEAGUE and Bill Bryson's THE LOST CONTINENT are breezy and pleasant. The varieties are endless; for example, the illustration for Timothy Findley's HEADHUNTER is completely different from Jim Shepard's PAPER DOLL. But, in my opinion, the illustrations that really stand out are the landscapes, which Minor always embraces in his picture books and in the book covers for Laura Kalpakian's THESE LATTER DAYS, THE PRINCE OF TIDES, and countless others. You can tell just by looking at any one of his big skies, rolling ocean, or blue mountain pictures that Wendell Minor is someone who has a passion for America's great lands, from Alaska to Florida. In each painting you feel like you're there, either watching a mockingbird fly from a tree, as a sliver of moon rises, like you're hearing the cicadas buzzing on a hot southern night, as in Harper Lee's classic TO KILL A MOCKINGBIRD. Or you're racing through the woods on a snowy winter night with a red fox, as in Eve Bunting's children's book RED FOX RUNNING. And if you're not there, you'll certainly want to be. It's a wonderful feeling to look at a painting like that that is so real, so familiar, so close. In the end, the only wrong thing I can see in this book is that there is not another one like it; there are dozens of book covers that weren't included in this collection, and there are still more coming out every month it seems! Still, as I've said earlier, part of the excitement of seeing a Wendell Minor cover is the surprise and the immediate recognization of his unique style when you're browsing through a bookstore or a library. It is my hope that someday I might write a book with a Wendell Minor cover to enliven its face.

Rating:
Summary: Spectacular collection of award-winning cover art
Review: I first fell in love with the art of Wendell Minor while I was reading books by the children's nature writer Jean Craighead George. Spectacular watercolor art added a new dimension to Ms. George's stories about the Arctic (like ARCTIC SON and SNOW BEAR), the Everglades (EVERGLADES), great horned owls (THE MOON OF THE OWLS), and wildlife throughout the country (MORNING, NOON, AND NIGHT). In each new book that I read, the colors were rich and the illustrations accurately portrayed the worlds which the author was describing. Then, as I came to recognize Minor's distinct, one-of-a-kind type of art, his work suddenly began to show up everywhere, in innumberable picture books and emblazoned on book covers. Now many of the book jackets in the bookstores and libraries don't seem as if they're scattered around in disorginization, out of view because the spines are facing outward on the shelves, or hard to find because the book might have gone out-of-print. That's because, to my relief and delight, there's a whole book of Wendell Minor's book jackets that have been compiled over the past twenty-five years. ART FOR THE WRITTEN WORD contains more than 100 of Minor's astounding watercolor, acrylic, and oil paintings. His distinguished work has appeared on a wide range of novels--fiction, nonfiction, biographies, thrillers, humor, cookbooks, natural history--many of them well-known stories by some bestselling authors. The artwork is reproduced in full-color on the oversized pages. There are pictures of famous people, houses, landscapes, wildlife, midwestern farms, towns, cities, wide open skies, automobiles, and scenes from the stories behind the covers. All of them are carefully rendered, detailed and thoughtful. You can look at a painting many times and each time notice something new. Along with the gallery of artwork, there's plenty of commentary from the people who wrote the stories that lie between the covers. Most of the authors' comments are filled with admiration and gratitude that the literature they spent so much time creating wasn't marred by an ugly or false jacket illustration. Some of the authors whose book covers are featured include David McCullough (who writes an excellent introduction), Ray Bradbury, Harper Lee, Garrison Keillor, Sherman Alexie, Mildred D. Taylor, Eve Bunting, Mary Higgins Clark, Pat Conroy, Toni Morrison, Patricia MacLachlan, Martin Cruz Smith, Elizabeth Marshall Thomas, and countless others. They all basically agree that they were proud and thankful that Wendell Minor did the covers for their books; he read the stories and researched his topics before making the illustrations and contributed to the success of their books. Many of them have added his jacket art to their private collections, sworn never to discard a Wendell Minor book jacket, and shown off their "most prized possessions" to friends and family. Some comments are just gushing with elation, like two letters, placed 17 years apart, from John Jerome, who was obviously delighted that Minor so accurately depicted the blue pick-up truck for his book TRUCK. Garrison Keillor lends his kind of "Prairie Home Companion" lightness to his story of the covers for his books WE ARE STILL MARRIED and WLT: A RADIO ROMANCE. Some illustrations--like the ones for Nancy Price's SLEEPING WITH THE ENEMY and C.J. Koch's THE DOUBLEMAN--seem to have almost subliminal meanings. WHERE ARE THE CHILDREN? and Brooks Stanwood's THE SEVENTH CHILD are quite frightening, while W.P. Kinsella's THE DIXON CORNBELT LEAGUE and Bill Bryson's THE LOST CONTINENT are breezy and pleasant. The varieties are endless; for example, the illustration for Timothy Findley's HEADHUNTER is completely different from Jim Shepard's PAPER DOLL. But, in my opinion, the illustrations that really stand out are the landscapes, which Minor always embraces in his picture books and in the book covers for Laura Kalpakian's THESE LATTER DAYS, THE PRINCE OF TIDES, and countless others. You can tell just by looking at any one of his big skies, rolling ocean, or blue mountain pictures that Wendell Minor is someone who has a passion for America's great lands, from Alaska to Florida. In each painting you feel like you're there, either watching a mockingbird fly from a tree, as a sliver of moon rises, like you're hearing the cicadas buzzing on a hot southern night, as in Harper Lee's classic TO KILL A MOCKINGBIRD. Or you're racing through the woods on a snowy winter night with a red fox, as in Eve Bunting's children's book RED FOX RUNNING. And if you're not there, you'll certainly want to be. It's a wonderful feeling to look at a painting like that that is so real, so familiar, so close. In the end, the only wrong thing I can see in this book is that there is not another one like it; there are dozens of book covers that weren't included in this collection, and there are still more coming out every month it seems! Still, as I've said earlier, part of the excitement of seeing a Wendell Minor cover is the surprise and the immediate recognization of his unique style when you're browsing through a bookstore or a library. It is my hope that someday I might write a book with a Wendell Minor cover to enliven its face.