I knew that Philip Pullman would be one of my favorite all-time writers when, after reading His Dark Materials, I saw on his website that he also writes picture books. His Dark Materials is complex and layered and disturbing, with a core of happiness in Lyra. Picture books, on the other hand, are thought of by most people as happy pages for children who haven't learned how to read, simple and vapid.
To me, picture books are profound poetry. You can see that the ones who write and illustrate them also feel this. Children get them. Grown ups who still have the imaginative part of their soul get them. So I am always surprised when the world of adult literature tends to view children's literature as not very meaty. Frankly, it makes me not want to read adult literature, because I figure that most adult lit, like most adults, have lost their imaginative core.
The way that Philip Pullman tells his stories in prose is something I admire so much. To think of his imaginative worlds told in the tighter bubbles of story-verse, where every word has a weight, felt to me like a colorful Beowulf.
I'm so glad he is on the planet! A future post will be specifically to talk about his picture books.
As said by Philip Pullman: "The meaning of a story emerges in the meeting between the words on the page and the thoughts in the reader's mind. So when people ask me what I meant by this story, or what was the message I was trying to convey in that one, I have to explain that I'm not going to explain.
Anyway, I'm not in the message business; I'm in the 'Once upon a time' business."
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