Black Sheep Wanders Off!

1946 Caldecott Honor: Little Lost Lamb

By Golden MacDonald (pseudo Margaret Wise Brown)

Illustrations by Leonard Weisgard (bio from Wikpedia)

Leonard Joseph Weisgard (December 13, 1916-January 14, 2000)^[1] was an award-winning American author and illustrator of more than 200 children's books, most famous for his collaborations with Margaret Wise Brown. He was born in New Haven, Connecticut, and spent most of his childhood in England.

Weisgard studied art at the Pratt Institute. His first book, Suki the Siamese Pussy, was published in 1937 and his first collaboration with Brown was two years later with The Noisy Books. The Little Island, written by Brown and illustrated by Weisgard, won the Caldecott Medal in 1948. They collaborated again on The Important Book, published by Harper & Brothers in 1949.

Weisgard married Phyllis Monnot in 1951 and, with her and their three children, moved to Copenhagen, Denmark, in 1969. He died on January 14, 2000, in Denmark.

Book Summary

A young shepherd boy takes a flock of sheep to the mountains to graze on fresh green grass and flowers.  While the shepherd falls asleep the black lamb of the flock wanders off.  The young shepherd boy returns the rest of the flock in the evening, but is unable to sleep.  The Young shepherd boy returns with his dog to search for the Black Lamb.  They end of rescuing the lost lamb just in time.

Illustrations

His interest in the quality of children’s books began after his family moved back to the USA when he was 8. As a schoolboy in New York, he was dissatisfied with the books supplied by the public schools he attended. He found the illustrations monotonous and thought that the world could not be all that dreary and limited to only one color.

He went on to study art at the Pratt Institute and the New School for Social Research, where he was influenced by primitive cave paintings, Gothic and Renaissance art and avant-garde French illustrators of children’s books of the 1920s.

He used a wide range of colors and media in his books, including gouache, poster paint, crayon, chalk, decoupage, stenciling and pen and ink. 

Taken from http://www.leonardweisgard.com/biography.htm

My impression and thoughts (all personal and unprofessional)  J

The use of color and black and white in the stories is wonderful.  During the day we see full color and details.  Then when night time falls the colors change to black, grey and white.  Very interesting way to show time passing in the story.  I can see the influence of cave paintings throughout the book.  Hard pointy edges, no shading just strong colors to fill in areas of space.  Not my favorite but not my least favorite either.

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? Probably not

3. Would I spend my hard earned money on the book? No

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

http://www.leonardweisgard.com/index.htm