I love Lauren Child, who has a great great great new version of "Princess and the Pea." She made dioramas and worked with a portrait photographer so that the illustrations/pictures almost live. And Robert McCloskey ("Make Way for Ducklings") is fantastic. Also Sophie Blackall ("Ivy and Bean") and Jen Corace ("Little Hoot") and John Tenniel ("Alice in Wonderland") oohh! and I'm not sure this counts as pure illustration but Sam Ita makes fantastic pop-ups for classics, so far he has popped up "Moby Dick" and "20,000 Leagues Under the Sea." Glorious.

Ok, here goes:
-James Marshall, the creator of George and Martha, Fox, The Stupids, Miss Nelson, and more.
-Arnold Lobel, who wrote and illustrated Frog and Toad, Owl at Home, Mouse Soup, Grasshopper on the Road, Lucille, and on and on.
-Jules Feiffer's illustrations for the Phantom Tollbooth.
-Alan Tiegreen, illustrator for Beverly Cleary's Ramona books.
-Quentin Blake, known best for illustrating Roald Dahl's many books.
-Douglas Florian paints wonderful, weird illustrations for his poems about bugs, bats, monsters, etc.
-Maurice Sendak of Where the Wild Things Are and In the Night Kitchen, and, if you haven't seen his illustrations for George Macdonald fairy tales, well, what are you waiting for?
-David Weisner's incredible, wordless stories.
-Molly Bang's The Grey Lady and the Strawberry Snatcher, another wonderful, wordless story.
-Victoria Chess's wicked illustrations of slugs, cats, piranhas, and the like.
-Babette Cole's goofy Princess Smartypants and others.
-Peter Sis who does incredible illustrations for all sorts of people. My personal favorites are his board books and Scranimals, a book of Jack Prelutsky's poetry that he illustrated.
-Lois Ehlert - check out Growing Vegetable Soup!
-William Steig - Pete's a Pizza!
-Kevin Henkes who writes and draws stories about mice like Lilly, Julius, and -Crysanthemum.
-Russell Hoban's Frances books.

Hello Sarah,

Thank you for taking the time to write us and ask us a question here at Ravenna Third Place Books.

You know, children's book illustrators very so much, that the breadth of style and technique out there is astounding! But that depth and playfulness only helps us adults enjoy the work as much as those children we're reading them to. Really, I think that some of the most exciting artistic experimentation goes on in between the covers of a kid's book.

Someone who takes that classic sense of watercolor and turns is a bit on his head is John Muth. Winner of the Caldecott for his book 'Zen Shorts', his adult graphic novel 'Moonshadow' is a joy too.

Ezra Jack Keats did both heaviness and lightness, in a way that that put the social uneasiness of his times (urban settings of the '60's and beyond) just below the surface underneath a layer of Gouache. As far as technique goes, Ezra was not afraid of using everything in the fishing box to get the product that he wanted. And his style, the color tones and knowledge of how colors play with each other of Mark Rothko mixed with the aesthetic simplicity of 'Sesame Street'

And then there's the illustrations in the best book ever written in any language -- 'The Little Prince'. Often the best artwork is what we do when we leave ourselves behind, and Antoine De Saint-Exupery found some plain of complete compassion to go to while he wrote his classic. It's important to remember that the children's book illustrator does what he does to help tell a story, this is the point of the illustrations themselves, and Antoines illustrations do this in a way that doesn't expound on the story linearly, but spiritually.

Thank you for your question, and if you've never been into the store, feel free to come in and say Hello!

I like Ezra Jack Keats, and, of course, Maurice Sendak.