easter

Grade 4 Up-- Dazzling beauty and poignant emotion suffuse these illustrations, which give an intensely personal interpretation of the King James version of the Easter gospels. The principal events are shown with such dramatic force through the use of agitated black silhouettes upon vividly colored backgrounds that the effect is almost shocking. Jesus' slender, often hunched figure aches with human suffering. His disciples are truly ordinary, slightly unkempt men undergoing a bewildering experience. In contrast to these stark figures enclosed in frames are exquisite representations of the stems and branches of plants and trees done in luminous colors and highlighted with gleaming gold, which sweep freely across the same pages. Symbols of spring and renewed life abound. The typography is large and clear, with initial letters gorgeously decorated in the style of an illuminated manuscript. Like the impressive He Is Risen (Holiday, 1985), adapted by Elizabeth Winthrop and illustrated by Charles Mikolaycak, this book is more suited to older children and adults than to the usual picture book audience, not only because of the Shakespearean English but also because of the sophistication of the illustrations.