The language in this beautiful book about artist Louise Bourgeois is lyrical and full of abstract language: metaphors, similes, and sly double-meaning phrases. Right from the first line we’re plunged into the world of words packed tight with meaning:
“Louise was raised by a river.”
The obvious meaning is that her family lived next to a river–which they did–but the book also quietly suggests that she became who she was because of the river–that the river raised Louise.
The metaphors and similes are rich and evocative:
Her family lived in a big house on the water that wove like a wool thread through everything.
Louise wove together a cloth lullaby.
Drawing was like a thread in a spider’s web.
It’s fitting that all of this abstract, figurative language is used to describe an artist whose work was symbolically figurative. We see in the back matter some of the amazing spiders she sculpted–her favorite subject–including one with a tapestry body.
The art in the book is beautiful and slightly surreal, matching the language beautifully. The production values of the book are rich and satisfying, too. The book has a cloth binding–absolutely appropriate for a book about a textile artist.
I’m so glad Alyson Beecher highlighted this book earlier this month on Kid Lit Frenzy. You can see more of the beautiful art in the book at Brain Pickings while you wait to get your own copy.
Cloth Lullaby: The Woven Life of Louise Bourgeois by Amy Novesky, illustrated by Isabelle Arsenault. Abrams Books for Young Readers: 2016.
I participate in Kid Lit Frenzy‘s 2016 Nonfiction Picture Book Challenge.
