(no subject)

[ceebeegee]

I've had a lot of down time at work lately and have been going online to track down reviews, etc. of some of my favorite childhood books, like the Edward Eager books (Half Magic, Knight's Castle, The Time Garden), the Saturdays books by Elizabeth Enright (The Saturdays, The Four-Story Mistake, Then There Were Five) and a bunch by Marilyn Sachs (Amy and Laura, Laura's Luck, The Bear's House). I also checked out Mitch and Amy by Beverly Cleary. Question--when did illustrations for children's literature get so awful? The original ilustrations for the Beverly Cleary and Edward Eager books were clever and funny. Why in God's name did they throw them out and use new ones? The ones for the Eager books are particularly awful--they don't draw you in the way the old ones did. In fact, you're turned off. If they're trying to get kids to read more, they might want to commission some more engaging illustrators. Ugh, they look terrible. And I can't stand Alan Tiegreen (he's been illustrating the BC books since the mid-'70s). You get the feeling he hates kids, because he makes them look so ugly. Ramona is downright homely in his books, and she's cute in the earlier Louis Darling books.

Thank God they haven't changed the illustrations for the Saturdays books--since Elizabeth Enright did her own drawings, they probably can't touch them.