A Picture Book from Caldecott Honor artist Pamela Zagarenski
Earlier this year, two-time Caldecott Honor artist Pamela Zagarenski made her debut as an author with The Whisper, a tender picture book about the magic of reading. We are delighted that The Whisper has received three starred reviews, and is an NPR Best Book of 2015, as well as a Kirkus Best Book of 2015.
Below, you can take a peek inside this stunning picture book, and if you keep reading, you can find out more about the author / illustrator’s creative process.
Click on the below images to expand!
Here, Pamela Zagarenski talks a bit about her artistic style and shares a sketch from the book:
I do all of my sketch work for my books in my journals. I have lots of ideas…some things become “real” and others don’t. I just play, and I write, and eventually the pieces come together to form something in paint and words.
I will write story ideas. I also write things that happen in my life. On this particular day I wrote about the black widow spider who appeared on my studio window with her egg sack while creating The Whisper. I imagined she had come to inspire me with words, and I named her Emily Bronte…(Charlotte-of course was her famous spider sister).
She inspired me with her glass like shiny black and red beauty – mingled with the fear that she simultaneously instilled in my heart just by being who she was – she was a marvelous enigma. And yes, of course I will never know the truth of it all – who can really ever say what is true?
I LOVE TO IMAGINE. And maybe just in the act of imagining, one actually makes the stories real. I dedicated this book in part to her, and I imagine she’s proud.
-Pamela Zagarenski, creator of The Whisper