Picturebook Study: Grey

Gray, the color we attach to characterless people, often suggests bleakness, lack of intensity, a cool detachment. The oppressively predominating gray of the stone walls surrounding Snow White’s mother in Burkert’s picture of her demands our detachment from her but also contrasts with the vibrantly colored patterns we see surrounding her as we look through her window into her room; perhaps as a foreshadowing of her daughter’s fate, she is a small spot of lively beauty in an otherwise bleak and forbidding world. In Inter-city, the wordless story of a train trip, Charles Keeping creates a similar relationship between what can be seen around a window and what can be seen through it. The feeling of boring detachment in the predominantly brownish grey pictures of passengers on a train contrasts with the vibrant colors of the world outside the train’s windows, which the passengers ignore. The contrast between the monochrome of the passenger pictures and the rich colours of the window pictures supports the central theme of the book: we see the passengers as they themselves see the world, and we see the richness of the world they miss because they do not bother to look at it.

Words About Pictures, Perry Nodelman
Inter-City Charles Keeping

and below is an interior image from Inter-City.

from Inter-City

For more Charles Keeping illustrations see here.

Most of these greys have a hue to them. Yellow greys, orange greys… Then there is completely desaturated grey.

Daniel Miyares
Daniel Miyares
The Boy and the Airplane

Forest green makes an interesting accent colour against grey — it’s more often something bright like yellow.

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For a full analysis of The Farmer and the Clown see here.

For a full analysis of Gaston see here.

Gaston
The Invisible Boy
Oliver
morris
Little Elliot Big City

Critics love Maurice Sendak. For a lot of academic stuff about Where The Wild Things Are see here.

Frederick-754x1024
wombatdiary

For a full analysis of Jumanji see here.

For a full analysis of Blackdog see here.

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Home » Picturebook Study: Grey
CONTEMPORARY FICTION SET IN AUSTRALIA AND NEW ZEALAND (2023)

On paper, things look fine. Sam Dennon recently inherited significant wealth from his uncle. As a respected architect, Sam spends his days thinking about the family needs and rich lives of his clients. But privately? Even his enduring love of amateur astronomy is on the wane. Sam has built a sustainable-architecture display home for himself but hasn’t yet moved into it, preferring to sleep in his cocoon of a campervan. Although they never announced it publicly, Sam’s wife and business partner ended their marriage years ago due to lack of intimacy, leaving Sam with the sense he is irreparably broken.

Now his beloved uncle has died. An intensifying fear manifests as health anxiety, with night terrors from a half-remembered early childhood event. To assuage the loneliness, Sam embarks on a Personal Happiness Project:

1. Get a pet dog

2. Find a friend. Just one. Not too intense.

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