David Wiesner

Yesterday, I found out that one of my favorite children's book illustrators, David Wiesner, is to illustrate this year's National Children's Book Week poster!  I'm so excited and can hardly wait to see it!
Here is the poster from 1921, illustrated by well known illustrator, Jessie Wilcox Smith. Notice that CBW was in November.  In 2008 CBW moved to May.

Anyways, about David Wiesner.  I discovered the illustrations of David Wiesner when in High School.  He'd written a book called Tuesday, that I found to be very clever.  The book is about a quiet, Tuesday evening.   As the sun goes down and the moon rises, lillypads become much like magic carpets and frogs began floating and flying through the air.  An adventure through the local small town begins. 
Tuesday is a wordless picture book which allows children to interpret the story, through their eyes, as they look at the pictures.  It's an excellent book for language and creative writing classes.
Tuesday was awarded the Caldecott Medal in 1992, which is given to the artist who has created the most distinguished picture book of the year.  It's like a Grammy or an Oscar for children's book illustrators. 

Other books by David Wiesner that I enjoy are...

The first part of Hurricane is about a family preparing for and waiting out a hurricane.  They tape up the glass screen door, have supper by the fire and go to sleep by lantern light.  In the morning they discover a neighbors tree that has fallen into the yard and this tree becomes an imaginative place to play!

Free Fall is amazingly illustrated and in 1989 it received a Caldecott Honor Medal.  The honor medal is like a second runner up type of thing,  and I can't believe it didn't win the actual Caldecott MEDAL. 

It is another wordless picture book that flows from page to page.  The video below shows the book in it's entirety, in a seamless flow.  It's a bit long but worth a look.  There is music as it plays so you may want to pause the playlist off to the right before starting the video.

June 29, 1999 is about a young girl's science experiment.  This book has a great ending.  Ha! I apparently found my copy at a garage sale for only 1$.  A steal if you ask me!

Sector 7, another Caldecott Honor book for Wiesner in 2000.  The story is about a boy whisked away from atop the Empire State Building to a cloud factory.  This one is on my wish list for 2012.

The Three Pigs won the Caldecott Medal in 2002

Flotsam is about a young boy who finds a very unique, antique camera on the beach.  When the pictures are developed, we see an amazing underwater world.  This imaginative book won the 2007 Caldecott Medal. 

Art and Max is Wiesner's most recent book.

I'm so excited to see what the 2012 CBW poster will look like!  I've got some pretty bare walls in the office/library just waiting for some art.  I'm thinking this poster just might end up on one of them.

Have a happy day!