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