FIVE NESTS ILLUSTRATION BY RUTH SANDERSON, On Display at the Free Library of Philadelphia

I was delighted to learn from my friend, librarian Carol Koneff, that an illustration by Ruth Sanderson for my very first published book, Five Nests, is on display in a special exhibit at the Free Library ofPhiladelphia. 

Carol saw the exhibit while visiting the library when she was in Philadelphia for the annual conference of the American Library Association. The exhibit, called Go Birds: Appreciating our Avian Friends, includes items from the library archives and will be up through August 30^th,  2025.

Ruth Sanderson’s illustration for my book depicts a rhea nest. (Rheas are large South American birds related to ostriches.) The rhea is an example of a bird species in which the male, or father bird, is the sole caretaker of the eggs and chicks. The illustration was donated to the library by Ruth.

A number of years ago I met Ruth for the first time at a children’s book conference. (We never met when Five Nests was published in 1980, which is not unusual.) After the conference Ruth sent me the original illustration for another page in the book that depicted Mexican Jays. In this species, multiple generations look after the young. In 2016, when I was in Philadelphia and learned that the library had a copy of Five Nests in their permanent archive, I donated that illustration to the library. I am pleased to learn that Ruth has donated other illustrations from the book as well.

Although Five Nests launched my career as a children’s book writer, it had a rocky start. It received a negative review in SLJ (unfairly, I thought) and as a consequence, many libraries, including my own, chose not to approve it for purchase. By the time Five Nests was named an Outstanding Science Trade Book by the NSTA/CBC the following year, it was too late. The book had already been remaindered. So I am especially pleased to see that it lives on at the Free Library of Philadelphia.

For more about Five Nests and the Free Library of Philadelphia:

My post on the 40th anniversary of the publication of Five Nests.

My post on the Philadelphia Free Library's Children's Literature Research Collection.

PRE-SEPARATED ART: Illustrating My Book THE BIGGEST LIVING THING

 

Black plate illustration for pages 6-7 The Biggest Living Thing (Carolrhoda, 1983) Pencil drawing by Caroline Arnold

Today's children’s books are printed with beautiful full color illustrations created with a vast array of artistic techniques—painting, drawing, collage, photography, mixed-media--basically anything that can be digitally color scanned. Those scans are then used to make the printing plates for the book. Typically there are four plates: black, cyan, magenta, yellow. (These are the same colors in the ink cartridges of your home printer.) On the printed page the colors merge to create a full range of hues.

Pages 20-21 of my book Five Nests (E.P. Dutton, 1980). Illustration by Ruth Sanderson.

But in 1980, when I first started publishing books for children, many were illustrated with black-and-white art, especially if they were nonfiction books, like mine. Digital scanning had not yet been invented and the cost of separating colors photographically to make each of the colored printing plates was so high that only the most established artists worked in full color. Many books were printed with black plus in some cases one or two colors. Five Nests, illustrated by Ruth Sanderson, was my first published book.The art was black, plus one color--green.

For most children’s books in those days, the artist was required to make a separate drawing for each printed color. Thus the art was “pre-separated” not needing expensive photographic separation. It was a technical process, converting the intensity of each color to shades of grey and then calculating how the colors would appear when overlapped on the printed page.

Cover of Sun Fun, an activity book.

My first opportunity to illustrate one of my books was Sun Fun (Franklin Watts, 1982) a book of simple projects about the sun and solar energy. It was a two color book. Obviously, I chose yellow for one of the colors. The other color I chose was red. As they overlapped in the printing I could achieve a range of colors from pink and orange to brown and grey.

Proof sheet for page 39. Squirrels help spread Sequoia seeds.

The second book I illustrated was my book about giant sequoia trees, The Biggest Living Thing (Carolrhoda, 1983.) This also was a two color book. I chose brown and green.

Black pencil drawing for pages 23-24. Space at top is left open for text. This Sequoia stump was so big it could be used as a dance floor.

The primary illustrations for the book were done in black pencil. Then working on a light table I created the pages for the two colors being careful to line up the registration marks to make sure that they would be in the correct places when the pages were printed.

Page 22. Two color art. Black plus green and brown.

The Biggest Living Thing was a 48 page book. I began by doing the black-and-white drawings—24 double-page spreads. With the additional drawings for the two colors I did a total of 72 drawings plus a full color painting for the jacket. It was a lot of work--for not a lot of money. After finishing the project I decided to focus my energy on writing books rather than illustrating them.

Jacket of The Biggest Living Thing. Watercolor painting.

Twenty years later the world had changed. Digital separation made it possible to illustrate without pre-separating. I began to illustrate again, this time using a cut-paper collage technique. But that is another story.

Note: The original art for The Biggest Living Thing is archived in the Kerlan Collection at the University of Minnesota.

FIVE NESTS (1980), Fortieth Anniversary of my First Book

Forty years ago on April 1, 1980, my first book, Five Nests, was published by E. P. Dutton. It was illustrated with beautiful art by Ruth Sanderson. For both of us, it was at the beginning of our long careers. (Ruth already had done a few books, but has since illustrated many more.) I was thrilled to become a published author but I never imagined that I would go on to write more than 100 books, and that I would still be writing and publishing books forty years later. (My new books, which will come out in 2022, will bring my total to more than 170.)
Five Nests is a nonfiction easy-read book about five species of birds, each with a different mode of parenting. With robins, both parents take care of the baby birds. With red-wing blackbirds, only the mother cares for the young. With rheas (South American relatives of the ostrich) the father bird cares for the young of multiple females. With Mexican jays, young birds help their parents care for the baby birds hatched in the following season. And, with cowbirds, the mother lays her eggs in the nests of other species and they raise the baby cowbird when it hatches.
Despite being named an Outstanding Science Trade Book by the CBC/NSTA, Five Nests went out of print quickly. It is almost impossible to find today. Two of Ruth’s beautiful black and white illustrations from the interior of the book, in the collection of the Philadelphia Free Library, can be seen on the internet. Mexican jay eggs. Mexican jays.
In 1980, the majority of children’s nonfiction were published with black and white illustrations. That has all changed, and now almost all books have beautiful full color art, like the painting on the cover of Five Nests. I have always hoped that I might one day see Five Nests republished with new full-color illustrations. The final lines of the book, There are many different ways that birds take care of their babies. Each way is a good way., apply to people too, and are just as relevant today as they were forty years ago.

Author photo on back flap of Five Nests

The Free Library of Philadelphia’s CHILDREN’S LITERATURE RESEARCH COLLECTION

As I often do when I travel, I like to visit the local library and meet the children’s librarian. I also like to check the catalogue to find out if the library has any of my books–and invariably I find that they have at least one. On a recent visit to Philadelphia, I stopped by the children’s room in the Central branch of the  Free Library of Philadelphia. I had a delightful visit with Patti McLaughlin, head of the children’s department, who asked me to sign a few of my books that were on the shelves (the library has 60 of my titles listed in its catalogue!) and told me about the incredibly successful story hour held in the library every Monday and Wednesday which is attended by more than a hundred mothers and children. She also pointed out the series of beautiful N.C. Wyeth paintings that decorate the walls of the children’s room.

The paintings are part of the library's extensive Children’s Literature Research Collection. I was pleased to discover that the research collection also includes quite a few of my books. I returned two days later to meet Chris Brown, the curator of the collection, who had assembled a number of my books for me to sign. They marked various landmark points in my career, from my first published book, Five Nests, to my tall tale, The Terrible Hodag, and many of my books illustrated with photos by Richard Hewett including Dinosaur Mountain, our animal books published at Morrow Junior Books, and Saving the Peregrine Falcon, which I discovered had been one of Chris’ favorite books since he was child.

Later that afternoon I visited the Rare Book Department of the library, currently featuring an exhibit called Or Else: Cautionary Tales for Children, where I saw the dummy of one of MY all time favorite books, Sylvester and the Magic Pebble by William Steig. The Or Else exhibit goes to July 23, 2016. As it turned out, a staff member was giving tours of the Elkins library, which is part of the rare books department, and invited me to come along. The Elkins library reproduces the actual library of its donor (chairs, curtains, carpets, shelves, etc.) exactly as it was in his home, along with his huge Dickens collection and other books. These are just a few of the fascinating things you will find at the Free Library of Philadelphia.

SOAR INTO READING with BIRDS

Caroline with Red-tailed Hawk, Goshute Mountains, Nevada

I love learning about birds.  My first published book was Five Nests, which came out in 1980 and was illustrated by Ruth Sanderson.  It was an easy-read book about five species of birds and their different modes of parenting.
Birds have been a favorite topic in many of my books and have always been part of my life.  As I child I used to get up early to go birdwatching with my father and for many years my husband, Art, studied birds in his research at UCLA.  My book, Birds, Nature’s Magnificent Flying Machines, focuses on flight and all the ways that a bird’s body is adapted to make it an expert flyer.
The picture above, of me holding a red-tailed hawk, was taken at a banding station on top of a mountain in eastern Nevada when I was researching my book, Hawk Highway in the Sky: Watching Raptor Migration (Harcourt Brace, 1997).  Every fall thousands of birds pass over this mountain top on their way south for the winter.  A few of the birds are caught, banded, and released.  My plan had been to spend a week at the site and take notes that I would later use to write the book.  As it turned out, the banding station was so busy that week they needed my help, so I got to learn what I needed to know by doing it myself.

For my Measuring Your Wingspan activity, go to my post for April 30, 2012.

My most recent bird book is A Bald Eagle’s World (Picture Window Books, 2010), illustrated with my own cut paper art. My older books are out of print, but you can look for them in your library.  My other titles about birds include: 

A Penguin's World (2006) Dinosaurs With Feathers: The Ancestors of Modern Birds (2001) Ostriches (an Earlybird Nature Book) (2001) On the Brink of Extinction: The California Condor (1993) House Sparrows Everywhere (Carolrhoda, 1992) Flamingo (Morrow Junior Books, 1991) Ostriches and Other Flightless Birds (a Nature Watch Book) (Carolrhoda, 1990) Penguin (Morrow Junior Books, 1988) Five Nests (Dutton, 1980)