Jabberwocky by Lewis Carroll. Illustrated by Graeme Base. Harry N. Abrams, 1987.
Jabberwocky, one of my favorite poems, taken from Alice’s Adventures Through the Looking Glass by Lewis Carroll, is illustrated in this picture book by the perfect illustrator for the poem, Graeme Base. Mr. Base, the Australian author and illustrator of the popular and weird picture book, Animalia, is certainly the right illustrator for the poem. Lewis Carroll’s imaginative poem with its other-worldly creatures and words calls for an artist who can also imagine scenes and creatures that have never been seen or heard of before.
Lewis Carroll is, of course, a favorite poet and writer of mine, although he’s not everyone’s cup of tea. I’ve written about Carroll and his books and poems many times here on Semicolon:
Alice I Have Been by Melanie Benjamin
Many Happy Returns:January 27th
Lewis Carroll’s Christmas Greeting
One Fun Day with Lewis Carroll by Katherine Krull.
Graeme Base, however, is an author and artist that I am just now getting to know. His Australian picture book poem, My Grandma Lived in Gooligulch, is a fun romp, and Animalia, although not my favorite alphabet book, is certainly popular here in the United States as well as in Base’s home country of Australia. Today, April 6th, is Mr. Base’s birthday, and since he was born in 1958, he’s only a year younger than I am. That gives him time to produce more wild and weird books in future. Do you know this author, or are you a Lewis Carroll fan? Leave me a comment, and tell me about your experience with either Carroll or Base.
’Twas brillig, and the slithy toves
Did gyre and gimble in the wabe:
All mimsy were the borogoves,
And the mome raths outgrabe.