Blueberry Girl, Neil Gaiman, HarperCollins Publishers, 2009In a sort of early New Year's resolution, I will attempt a slight upgrade at least in terms of content here at Keep The Wisdom. Sunday posts will now be devoted to children and young adult literature. I start off here with my favorite picture book of 2009.
Neil Gaiman wrote the text, which is in the form of a prayer to female spirits for an as-yet-to-be-born daughter. The slightly psychedelic illustrations by Charles Vess are bursting with intense color, myriads of animals, and various incarnations of the Blueberry Girl to be.
I did not have a daughter but I have two granddaughters, as different from each other as any two females could be, but to me of course, equally precious and delightful. I wrote a poem for the elder and a song for the younger, so I am a bit in awe to find Neil Gaiman's lines so similar in intention to mine: "Keep her from spindles and sleeps at sixteen. Let her stay waking and wise. Nightmares at three or bad husbands at thirty, these will not trouble her eyes."
I am giving this book to every expectant mother I know, as well as a copy to my daughter-in-law.
(Blueberry Girl is available on the shelf in the picture book section of Once Upon A Time Bookstore.)
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