When the Sky is Like Lace
Barbara Cooney Reissue
Elinor Lander Horwitz Barbara Cooney
9781939017475
32 pages
Islandport Press
Overview
Haunting and dreamlike, this picture book describes the strange-splendid and plum-purple things that can happen on a night when the sky is like lace.When the Sky is Like Lace was named one of the New York Times Outstanding Books of the Year when it was first published in 1975. The Times’ reviewer called it “… a haunting book, an original creation which survives on the power of its mood. Imaginative children with their own night fantasies may well blend this vision with their dreams.”On a night on which anything, you think, can and indeed will happen, three girls venture out to listen to otters sing, eat spaghetti with pineapple sauce, and watch trees dance. Horwitz’ text is just as innovative as it was forty years ago, complete with invented words and nouns put to use as verbs (“trees eucalyptus back and forth”). Barbara Cooney’s paintings complete the magic, using wispy and playful watercolors, a lesser-known and softer style than used in some of her more well-known books.Islandport Press is thrilled to be reissuing this treasure, a favorite of children and one requested by librarians everywhere.Author Bio
Elinor Lander Horwitz is the author of 14 books for children, young adults, and general audiences and has received several book and journalism awards. Her travel and feature articles on a vast range of subjects appeared for many years in the Washington Post, the Washington Star, The New York Times and a wide range of magazines. Horwitz, who lives in Maryland, has three children and seven grandchildren. Horwitz is the mother of Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Tony Horwitz and the mother-in-law of journalist and Pulitzer Prize winning author Geraldine Brooks.Barbara Cooney (1917-2000) was a renowned children’s book author and illustrator who published more than 100 books. Born in Brooklyn, NY, she lived much of her life in Maine and focused often on the culture and landscape of that state, and her artistic style portrayed a rural New England full of peaceful tranquility. A two-time winner of the Caldecott Medal, she was the recipient of countless other honors and distinctions, and was declared a “Living Treasure of the State of Maine” in 1996. She once said, “Of all the books I have done, Miss Rumphius, Island Boy, and Hattie and the Wild Waves are the closest to my heart. These three are as near as I will ever come to an autobiography.”
