The Giant Seed (Stories Without Words) – Arthur Geisert
The Giant Seed by Arthur Geisert / ISBN 9781592701155 / 32-page hardcover, 10 x 5.88 inches, from Enchanted Lion Books
***
In this follow up to the magnificently inventive Ice (a New York Times Best Illustrated Children’s Book), Arthur Geisert once again charms us with his delicately defined pigs. This time his pigs must get creative when a volcano destroys their home. Fortunately they got busy before trouble hit by planting a huge mysterious seed—for it’s the seed plus imagination, as well as a good dose of can-do spirit, that save the day!
Illustrated with inventive, sensitive, and unusually lovely copper plate etchings that seem to come from an old cherished album, The Giant Seed is a worthy successor to Geisert’s Ice.
Arthur Geisert’s pigs are legendary in the world of children’s books. They carve ice sculptures, teach Roman numerals, create ingenious machines and get up to all kinds of antics. Did Arthur grow up on a farm? No. He grew up in Los Angeles and claims not to have seen a pig until he was an adult. Trained as a sculptor in college, Geisert learned to etch at the Otis Art Institute in Los Angeles. Geisert has published just about a book a year for the past thirty years, and every one of his books has been illustrated with etchings. His work has appeared in The New Yorker and the Horn Book Magazine, and he has won The New York Times’ Best Illustrated Award. A resident of Galena, a community in northwest Illinois, for decades, he now lives in a converted bank building in Bernard, Iowa.
