Category: surprise surprise
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Wessman and Wiesner: Serious Play with Paint
I had the pleasure of meeting Robin Wessman at a local art show. The Provincetown Independent featured Wessman’s paintings in “Robin Wessman’s Destabilizing Reality” (March 20, 2025). In this article we see Wessman’s color and light leap off the page. Reporter Abraham Storer describes these still life images as “rendered realistically, with fastidious care given to…
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Bliss’ Bailey Goes to School
Bailey by Harry Bliss looks like an easy laugh at first glance. Bailey is a stocky, softly spotted dog whose tail wags all the time. That’s one clue to how I learned to love this story. On the cover, in Bliss’ characteristically clean illustration style, Bailey is writing the title and author’s name in white…
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Insightful Title
Marisol McDonald Doesn’t Match by Monica Brown (2011), at first glance, looks like it might be a story about a unique personality, maybe an artistic child, so I grab it. Sara Palacios’ cover illustration shows a smiling red-head with pig tails hanging upside down. I don’t know which way is up until I read the…
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