Lucy Dove - Hardcover

Janice M. Del Negro is the editor of The Bulletin of the Center for Children's Books, a monthly review journal of books for youth published through the Graduate School of Library and Information Science at the University of Illinois. Ms. Del Negro came to the University of Illinois from the State Library of North Carolina, where she was a consultant for children's and public libraries throughout the state. Prior to this she worked for fourteen years as a children's librarian for the Chicago Public Library, including five years as Assistant Director of Systemwide Children's Services. Del Negro has reviewed for Booklist Magazine, School Library Journal, and Kirkus Reviews, and has served on both the Newbery and Caldecott committees. An experienced storyteller, librarian, book reviewer, publishing consultant and educator, Ms. Del Negro has been a featured speaker, storyteller and workshop leader, appearing at the 1997 Allerton Conference, Stories: From Fireplace to Cyberspace, the Illinois Library Association, the Bluestem Storytelling Festival, The Illinois Storytelling Festival, The Fox Valley Music and Storytelling Festival, the Champaign Public Library Children's Literature Festival, and many other celebratory events. She has spoken and conducted workshops on various aspects of children's literature and publishing, storytelling, and reading motivation for librarians, teachers, parents, and other educators in a variety of settings, including The University of Illinois, The University of Chicago, Dominican University, and DePaul University. Ms. Del Negro has performed and lectured extensively in libraries, schools, and community centers in the Midwest and Southern United States. Her specialties include transformation stories with a gentle emphasis on women and ghosts, retelling traditional folktales, and reading motivation through literature and storytelling. Her first audiocassette, Journeywomen and Ghostly Passages, was released in July, 1991. Two new audiocassettes, Romantic Wonder: Tales of Love and Magic, and Shadow's Sisters: Shapeshifters, Wraiths, and Spirited Women, will be released in November, 1998. Lucy Dove is her version of a traditional Celtic tale she has been telling for years, one that evolved from her search for stories with active heroines to offset the passive female protagonists of many popular fairy tales. This is her first picture book.

Leonid Gore is a native of the former Soviet Union, where he illustrated many books before coming to the United States in 1990. He has illustrated several picture books since, including Jacob and the Stranger by Salley Derby. A pointer review in Kirkus praised his art as "stunning... evanescent, suggestive... with a dreamlike aura, subtly dramatic characterizations, and a sly touch of whimsical humor." Leonid Gore lives in Brooklyn, New York.

Drawing on elements of a Celtic ghost story, this delectably well told tale has pitch-perfect prose matched by illustrations that seem imbued with mist and moonlight. When a superstitious, wealthy lord is told that a pair of trousers sewn under a full moon in St. Andrew's graveyard will bring him good luck, he issues a proclamation: "A sackful of gold to the one who sews me those trews!" The graveyard is known to be haunted by a "fearsome thing," but "as fortune would have it, and fortune always has her way," a seamstress named Lucy Dove hears of the offer and takes up the challenge. A flesh-hungry "bogle" appears, but Lucy continues to sew, hiding her fear as she craftily converses with it: "[People tell] stories about me?" asks the bogle. "Do they tell of... how I strike fear in the hearts of brave but foolish men?" "Something like that," Lucy answers cunningly, "They tell them to little children at bedtime, to help them sleep, you know." Children's librarian and debut author Del Negro is equally adept at building suspense and maintaining humor, and her text is laced with witty asides and atmospheric dialect. Gore's (The Pomegranate Seeds) self-framed acrylic paintings have an ethereal quality, their spookiness tempered to just the right degree by subtle colors, wispy brushstrokes and mottled areas. Like the text, the art is masterfully paced, and two wordless spreads?Lucy first seeing the ghoul, and then running from its jagged white claws?heighten the drama. Ages 8-11.
Copyright 1998 Reed Business Information, Inc.