Author-illustrator celebrates the art of the children’s book
By R.A. WALKER rwalker@sungazette.comChildren's book author and illustrator Lindsay Barrett George exposed several hundred area pre-schoolers to the magic and joy of stories and pictures Wednesday morning.
The Hawley-area resident was at the Scottish Rite's Howard Theater at the invitation of the James V. Brown Library in conjunction with the Governor's Art Awards week. Her audience of pre-schoolers was loud and happy and the program, spiced with music and audience participation.
All of George's books involve animals. Her last was about an aardvark that lives inside a dictionary. A Canada goose inspired her first book.
The goose entered and left her life over a matter of months but opened up a venue to pass along the magic of stories and pictures she had discovered as a young child.
"When I was very young, I believed that animals pictured in books were alive in those books," she wrote in a profile on her publisher's Web site. "A photograph of a 'sea monster' in my parents' copy of the Wonder Book of Knowledge looked so real that I wouldn't walk in front of the book, for fear of being bitten."
It was "the power of make-believe" at work, and as a child she loved to draw and "make marks on paper (or) any available surface." She grew up, went to college and moved to New York City, where she continued to pursue her art and made her living as a designer for a book publisher.
It wasn't until she left New York City and moved to Pennsylvania and a log cabin on a pond near Hawley that the goose named "Boomer" came into her life and the books began to happen.
Her first book was called "William and Boomer." According to George, "Boomer" was only a few days old when rescued along a stretch of Route 15 near an already smushed sibling.
The family took the young survivor back to their log cabin, where it stayed until old enough to fly away "to the wild."
The William character in George's first book was George's son - now grown up and working for the FBI in Washington, D.C.
Over the years, George has illustrated 17 children's books, 11 of which she wrote as well. "Love" and the magic of books has a lot to do with George's art.
"What I tell children is, do what you love," she said.
"There is magic for me in creating children's books," George wrote in her profile.
"I love mysteries," she added. "As I start out to create each of my books, I feel as though I have a mystery to solve. Writing the story and designing the book is my way of finding the solution."
