Simple and Sweet Prayers!

1945 Caldecott Winner: Prayer For A Child

By Rachel Field

Illustrated by Elizabeth Orton Jones (also won the Honor in 1944)

Bio from: Wikipedia

She was born "half past Christmas" in Highland Park, Illinois, to George Roberts Jones, a violinist, and Jessie May Orton, a pianist and a writer. Elizabeth was followed by a brother and a sister. During her youth, two Bohemian girls served as cook and nurse in her home, providing an alternative set of cultural norms which surely served as an encouragement for Elizabeth to develop her artistic side.

Her work was very much influenced by the editions of Horn Book Magazine that she got. Her friend Bertha Mahony Miller, an editor of Horn Book, would frequently call from seventeen miles away with ideas for Elizabeth to write about.

Small Rain: Verses from the Bible, a book she illustrated in 1944, was chosen as a Caldecott Honor Book, and in 1945, Prayer for a Child, written by Rachel Field and illustrated by Jones, received the Caldecott Medal.

In her Caldecott acceptance speech, she said:

“

Drawing is very like a prayer. Drawing is a reaching for something away beyond you. As you sit down to work in the morning, you feel as if you were on top of a hill. And it is as if you were seeing for the first time. You take your pencil in hand. You'd like to draw what you see. And so you begin. You try ... . Every child in the world has a hill, with a top to it. Every child-black, white, rich, poor, handicapped, unhandicapped. And singing is what the top of each hill is for. Singing-drawing-thinking-dreaming-sitting in silence . . . saying a prayer. I should like every child in the world to know that he has a hill, that that hill is his no matter what happens, his and his only, forever.

”

Book Summary

“Bless this milk and bless this bread.

Bless this soft and waiting bed…..”          

A simple, child-told, prayer comes to life from the perspective of a little girl.  This book is filled with soft and delicate text accompanied with identical illustrations.   Soft and round are a common occurrence.  Ms. Jones at times uses soft yellows, browns and blacks to complete her illustrations.  At times more color is added to the pictures but always done with good taste and appropriateness.   Dolls, Teddy Bears and children’s memories are abundant in the story and illustrations!

Final Thoughts:

1. Would this be a book I would pick up again? Yes

2. Would I recommend it to others to search out and take a look at? Yes

3. Would I spend my hard earned money on the book? Maybe

4. Where did I get the book? Pierce County Library

http://www.ortakales.com/illustrators/Jones.html

http://libweb.uoregon.edu/ec/exhibits/childrenslit/eojonesgal.html