where you tend a rose

I recently revisited Roald Dahl’s James and the Giant Peach with illustrations by Nancy Ekholm Burkert, whose illustrations for Snow-White and the Seven Dwarfs, by Randall Jarrell, I adore (they won a Caldecott Award in 1973). She’s only illustrated a handful of books in her lifetime, but all that I’ve seen are incredibly detailed and beautiful. The color plates in this book are really cool. Some of the pencil drawings in between are a little strange - James has really big dark and sunken eyes that make him look almost like a bug - maybe purposefully. The drawings of all the insects are pretty funny; they made me want to go back and re-read what I’m sure is a hilariously entertaining book.

All images from James and the Giant Peach by Roald Dahl, illustrations by Nancy Ekholm Burkert. Published by Knopf, 1961