This was my entry this year to the Tomie dePaola competition. Such a great experience and practice to take words and turn it into pictures. As I read through the book, vintage images popped into my mind, but on page 222 at the beginning of chapter 24 this part of the story started to melt my heart. Right before they go on the hunt for the wolves, this tender moment takes place (sort of) between Jody and his mom. She is not very warm towards him usually because of the loss of her other children & her fear that harm will come to him if she cares for him. You can tell here though, that she loves him and it shows.
A little later in the story her feelings really come out but this moment in the story filled my mind with an image that I could see in great detail...
I imagined standing outside the window peeking in. It was still dark early in the morning & the air felt crisp & still. You could see the crackling fire and the boy slowly approaching his mother cautiously. As it states in the story she tolerated him a moment before pushing him away. But before that moment she probably could feel his love in his ginger touch and the way he got close to warm his hands under her coat. How could any mother push their son away? I can also understand how she might have felt, as a mother not ever wanting anything bad to ever happen to your children. I guess back then emotions were not expressed as much and pride was too strong to admit when people were wrong. Regardless this moment that was squeezed into a small paragraph seemed so powerful I had to illustrate it!
You can see all of the amazing entries that were submitted to the unofficial gallery. CLICK HERE >>> I know a few others who submitted to the contest that are not on the gallery site. Everyone really put in a lot of hard work and should be so proud! I look forward to meeting some of those talented people at the conference in February!
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