Day 17: Once Upon a Time: A Treasury of Fairy Tale Illustrations

I went to the bookstore today to run some errands in the Wilkinson Center (The BYU student hub) and found this book. I was surprised, because it got me thinking, "What would we do without illustrators?" My sister, who's an artist, can understand this question. She would probably say to me, "You can't do without them.", and she would be right. As I was looking through the book and reading the information on some of the artists, I recognized some of their styles from my own fairytale books when I was younger. What a bleak world it would be without art! There are so many types and styles, and if you know how to draw or paint (which I don't...) you can create worlds and give shape to the mind's eye of those who read books. What a responsibility, and what a great adventure! There were some artists who worked on magazines and printed editions, mostly of Grimm and Hans Christian Andersen tales, but there were some who worked for Disney in the 1930's and who worked on the more modern tales of Oscar Wilde...It's just all over the place, and lives as much as print does. We need art as much as we need the printed word, and putting them together is a treasure indeed. May we never forget the "behind the scenes" parts of a book...the authors, the illustrators, the publishers, the editors....If you find a book you like, remember all the people behind that good book.