About Picture Books

Why do artists do their work?

Someone asked Alice Munro about the Nobel Prize, and she said the recognition was nice, "but it's the writing, the life of writing, that sustains me."

(On the other hand, we have Wickie, filming her own story in "Girls5eva." Looking at the viewer, she says, "Music is my life. And I don't do it for the money....or the awards.....I do it for BOTH!")

In Tomie dePaola's "Legend of the Indian Paintbrush," we see a little gay kid who doesn't want to fight or hunt. It worries him that he has so little interest in a conventional path; he thinks he ought to talk himself into doing something he doesn't want to do. But God appears and says, "Look, you're actually here to paint the sunset--and everything around you that you see. You can mope, or you can get to work."

What follows is a difficult, joyful, artistic life. The little kid discovers discipline--and he makes a deliberate choice to pay attention to his dreams.

What an odd selection of a topic, if you're a writer of picture books--and dePaola's sense of grace and authority puts most artists to shame.

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