Pictures & Books

When I was wee I watched a lot of Rocky and Bullwinkle. And it's not just because my name is Natasha (though I'm sure it helped). It was partly because I have always wanted to be a flying squirrel with goggles and partly because I loved "Fractured Fairy Tales." The reason for this was threefold. First, I love fairy tales. Second, the writers on that show were hilarious and the sketches were, too. And third: I love re-imagined stories. I loved it on Rocky and Bullwinkle and even as I continued to grow up I've loved seeing new takes on old stories that I love. I love it when The Simpsons riff on Hansel and Gretel. I love retold fairy tales in novel form. And most recently, I've grown addicted to blogs that showcase talented artists' renderings of their favorite childhood stories.

These blogs--Picture Book Report and Beyond the Page to name a few favorites--collect works of many artists with very different styles putting their own take on classic stories. Here's Chrystal Chan's take on Roald Dahl's Matilda:
The blog Terrible Yellow Eyes exhibits work solely inspired by Sendak's 1963 Caldecott winner Where the Wild Things Are. Here is French artist Aurélie Neyret's take:
Some interpretations are more ... adult ... than others, but all of them demonstrate the influence children's literature has on us from our first interactions with it.
Still more interpretations help us to see favorites in a new way, as does Lucy Knisley's adaptation of a scene from Lois Lowry's 1993 Newbery winner The Giver:

And then there's Faith Erin Hick's adaptation of the first few pages of Suzanne Collins' The Hunger Games. I particularly love the panels where Katniss and Buttercup are eyeballing each other: