Aunt Book Expresses Righteous Indignation
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In Which Aunt Book Inveighs Against Ruining Illustrations

     Aunt Book was recently looking through some new books and came across a copy of Robert McCloskey's TIME OF WONDER.  Being, with reason, highly suspicious of reprinted picture books, she compared the new book with the old, and had to have recourse to her smelling salts.  The colors in the new book were pale and washed out, with nowhere near the richness and depth of the old copy.  Aunt Book has had the same sort of experience before, for example with the reissued versions of some of Tasha Tudor's books.  She does not know whether it is the printing method, the paper, or something else, but she does know that the results are disastrous.   

    Some years ago, Aunt Book was delighted to be able to order a brand-new copy of THE CABIN FACED WEST, by Jean Fritz, with illustrations by the award-winning Feodor Rojankovsky.  She already had a rather old copy of the book, which had been discarded by a library.  With what delight she opened the package when the book arrived!  With what eagerness she turned the pages!  With what acute horror she saw the barbarism that had been perpetrated against the illustrations!  Those in her old, battered copy were lovely, with subtle shading that reminded her of the illustrations in Lynd Ward's THE BIGGEST BEAR.  Those in the new book were coarse and sketchy.  They were the same illustrations as previously, but Aunt Book suspects that a)the plates used were very worn, and b)the quality of the paper was so bad - pulpy and rough - that even if the plates had been adequate it would not have helped.  Aunt Book wrote a scathing letter to the publisher, and rather than being given any explanation or the groveling apologies that should have been forthcoming, was told that the pictures were exactly the same as they had always been.  Aunt Book is not blind; she is also not stupid, and was not at all pleased that they assumed that she was.   


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