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An Artist I Love

 One sign of talent in a painter, or sketcher: his images look like they're alive.


I often admire Kevin Henkes for his psychological insights: his mouse who fears that a crack in the wall might open and swallow all living things, his family who worry about over-extensive use of one security blanket, his playground of bullies who like to fixate on one exotic first name. ("A chrysanthemum grows in the DIRT.....with WORMS....")

But Henkes is also simply an inspired artist. I'm haunted by his sketches: the squirrel who loses his nut, the kitten who accidentally traps a fly on her tongue, the strange bear-figurine, wary about the arrival of a glass elephant, from India. 

I have often pinned my attention to the canonical Henkes books--the mice works, and "Kitten," and "Waiting"--but I'm eager to dip into stranger waters. I have dates with "Egg," "Old Bear," and "My Garden"--in the near future.




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