Edit ‘germinating/david_roberts’: progress by redwizard

Edit ‘germinating/david_roberts’: progress (by redwizard at 10 Apr 25 19:41 UTC)

Hyphae affected: germinating/david_roberts

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+= David Roberts
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+I haven't written one of these in a long time. When I had the idea to make a post like this I thought, maybe, I'd write one of these on a regular interval, but that just wasn't in the cards. You of all people should understand what I mean. In thinking about what to write next, I realized I didn't just want to pull up from the Rolodex of kids authors and educational figures and slap together a series of snippets from a Wikipedia article. I wanted to write about people in the kids space that, I thought, were more interesting than not. Often times, authors get a lot of the praise when it comes to children's books, and sure that is with good reason. A children's book is a good combination of art and story, that is, unless you're [[https://app.thestorygraph.com/books/7846f6fe-879f-4e7f-88ed-d848742b613a | B. J. Novak]]. Some authors are also great artists, as evidence by the last [[https://hexbear.net/post/3096305 | Story Time]] post I wrote, and in some cases it is the art that really sets a story apart.
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+[[ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Roberts_(illustrator) | David Roberts]] is an illustrator most famously known for his work on a series of books known as "The Questioneers" done in collaboration with author Andrea Beaty. I, however, was first introduced to David Roberts' beautiful art in a book that I featured in our first [[ https://hexbear.net/post/2472029 | Story Time]] post, inside a book called "Someone Just Like You" (written by Helen Docherty). Something about Roberts' art really struck me. It was fun and silly, vibrant and chaotic. Every character was unique in some way, they also seemed wildly authentic in their representation. Even though the subject of "Someone Just Like You", at its heart, is somewhat grim, it isn't heavy or even heavy-handed. The subtext of the book will likely be lost on young readers, but the message is one of international solidarity, something I think we can all get behind. I think much of what softens the subject of this book is the way in which Roberts' depicts these children. Their various and diverse representations do not feel forced, they don't feel like an afterthought, and in many ways, it feels like a great deal of care was invested in their presentation.
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+This will be a theme throughout David Roberts work. A prime example of this for me is the book "Bath The Cat" (written by Alice B. McGinty). This is a book that we all love in our house. It is a silly, goofy, wacky book, about a family trying to clean their house, and a Cat who does not want to take a bath. It is, by all accounts, a pretty simple story that could have been illustrated in a pretty typical way. This is how Roberts chose to depict the family in his story:
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+The story contained within these pages does not require the family to be depicted as they are, but they are anyway. It's honestly, very refreshing, and presents this queer coded family in a totally "normal" way, it normalizes their existence in a way that many children's books likely get wrong. They have a messy house, they struggle to get it clean before Grandma arrives, and they also wear their queerness out loud, as depicted by the various fridge magnets and children's art within illustrations. This queer forward depiction of the family was apparently to much for some, [[ https://arktimes.com/arkansas-blog/2023/04/14/republicans-in-saline-county-join-the-book-banning-club-take-a-look-at-what-theyre-mad-about | finding itself on a banned book list in Saline County, Arkansas]].
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+These themes and depictions can be found in many other works by Roberts. In Sofia Valdez, Future Prez for example, Sofia's grandfather wears a bucket hat with a few buttons on it; a peace sign, a white button with a pink triangle in the center, and a button that reads "Sí, se puede" which you might recognize as the motto for the United Farm Workers of America labor union. Sofia Valdez is an interesting book in its own right, it isn't about a young girl dreaming about being President, it's about a young girl who petitions her local government, after gathering community support, to build a park where there once was a landfill. It shows that, through community organizing and pressure, you to can make change in your local environment.
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+Roberts is an author in his own right, and many of the themes he expresses through his depiction of people and children in his illustration work are full front and center in his own books. He focuses on illustrated history, his first book being [[ https://app.thestorygraph.com/books/34a2742f-e055-4cc8-a095-e73b8cd62301 | Suffragette: The Battle For Equality]] and his second being [[https://app.thestorygraph.com/books/24e7fc40-b1fa-461c-87c3-ab20b1a40601 | We Are Your Children: A History of LGBT+ Activism]].