Peter Sis writes and illustrates picture books that are multilayered and thus read by audiences of all ages. Adults comment on how much they learned from a Sis book or how much they wanted to just sit and wonder at the illustrations, yet children in the Prep library will pick up Sis books that are on display and bring them to me to show me something that they have seen and want to ask about. His illustrations are detailed and complex, but appealing and they 'move', as if they are part of a film. So I wasn't surprised to read that Sis was a film-maker in Czechoslovakia where he was born and grew up, until 1982 when the Polish government sent him to Los Angeles to make a film about the Winter Olympics. While there he applied for asylum and it was granted. After contacting Maurice Sendak he became an illustrator and artist and now lives in New York.
While Sis has some pre-school books such as Fire Truck; Trucks, Trucks, Trucks and Dinosaur!, and other picture books for young children such as his Madlenka titles, it is his more complex books such as Tibet Through the Red Box; The Tree of Life; and Starry Messenger that set him apart from other illustrators. These books are outstanding!
"With Sís, everything is multilayered and full of surprises. Getting it all in one read is like seeing the Metropolitan Museum of Art in an afternoon." --The San Diego Tribune
Secondly, today is artist Salvador Dali's birthday, so it's a good ti
me to share Dali and the Path of Dreams by Anna Obiolis and Joan Surbirana or to have an Adventure in Art with Angela Wenzel's The Mad, Mad, Mad, World of Salvador Dali. Another source of inspiration worth exploring is the Children's Art blog.
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