Wordy Book
Created by Julie Paschkis
Author's note
"Some children’s books feel like classics the first time one encounters them. It’s not hard to imagine young poets embracing The Wordy Book as warmly as new generations keep embracing The Little Prince.” ―Naomi Shihab Nye, for the New York Times
A Publishers Weekly High-Concept Picture Book for Children
Selected for 2021 Society of Illustrators Original Art Exhibition
This book is a collection of paintings made up of words upon words, all moving, interacting, and creating a visually stunning and wordy universe. Each page contains a question to be answered with the words that lie within. What happens when words and pictures coexist in such a way, bump into one another, are in constant conversation? How might words paint a bird, while that very bird sings the words themselves? This book invites readers to participate in a vibrant celebration of language itself.
Julie Paschkis was born in Pennsylvania and attended Germantown Friends School, Ringerike Folkehogskole in Norway, Cornell University and the School for American Craftsmen at RIT. She taught art to grade school children for about 8 years. During that time she continued to work on her own art and illustration. In 1991 she stopped teaching to commit herself to doing art full time. That art includes painting, illustration, and illustrating children's books. All of it is connected to storytelling. Julie has published nearly 25 children's picture books, including a much acclaimed one about the poet Pablo Neruda. The Wordy Book is a book of gorgeous word painting on which Julie has worked for many years. It celebrates the imagination and the playful expressiveness, the sheer richness and beauty of language. Julie lives in Seattle, WA with her family and community.