BooKs

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Rapunzel

Photos by Kristo Husa

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Numerous rapunzel plants
grew in the home of Paul
Zelinsky, signing auto-
graphs at The Book Beat.

A famous fairy-tale heroine meets a modest author
and the combination is winning.

Elizabeth Applebaum
AppleTree Editor

he soft curve of an arm, pale
as snow. A strand of hair, ten-
derly curled, slightly shadowed
on one side. The furtive look in an
eye, or a shy glance.
When Paul Zelinsky paints he is try-
:
ing to communicate, and he is
pleased when his message is under-
' stood.
He was reading a review of his lat-
est book Rapunzel (published by
Penguin Putnam Inc.), and the review-
er mentioned that in a certain illustra-
tion the character seemed to show
two feelings at once. Zelinsky was
delighted. "That's exactly what I was
trying to show," he says. "I'm just
never certain whether I've accom-
plished it."
His illustrations are often bold;

mother, published his own version o f
Hansel and Gretel.
As a child, Paul% first creations
were animals who inhabited the king-
Rapunzel.
doms of Squigglebeania and Iggle-
Zelinsky recently was in town for an
beania. As a young man, he contin-
appearance at the Book Beat in Oak
ued to draw and impressed his
Park, where several hundred copies
uncle, who worked at the New York
of his books had been sold long
Times. The uncle convinced Zelinsky
before he even arrived. They sat in
to show his drawings to the paper's
heavy, colorful stacks at the back of
art editor, who hired him to make
the store.
several illustrations.
As a boy growing up in Evanston,
In college at Yale and at the Tyler
III., Zelinsky loved to draw. He was
School of Art in Philadelphia, Zelin-
the son of a mathematician father
sky learned that his talent could
and a mother who illustrated medical
improve — not simply by learning
texts. His great-grandmother painted,
how to draw better, but by being
including a work showing Hansel
inspired. "I learned the training of the
and Gretel outside the witch's home.
eye as well as the hand," he says.
For years it hung in her great-grand-
"And I did get better, and it hap-
son Paul's room; then in 1985 Paul
pened it spurts and it was clearly visi-
Zelinsky, inspired by his great-grand- t ble. This was because of teachers,

Zelinsky himself is quiet and modest.
Yet only days ago he was honored
with one of literature's highest
awards: the Caldecott Medal, for

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not just what they said but because
of the kinds of people they were. A
really good teacher is an inspiration
as a person, and he pulls students
after him. You get a good teacher,
and then you want to do things differ-
ently."
One of Zelinsky's most popular
books is The Wheels on the Bus,
which is not only filled with lush illus-
trations but cardboard window
wipers that slide back and forth
(among other moving parts). Here,
his inspiration from a teacher is
marked.
"I had never heard the song
before," he says. "Then I heard my
wife, Deborah, teaching it to her
kindergarten class. I began to think of
it as a book with wheels that really
went around and around and doors
that opened and closed." It would be
the perfect complement to his wife's
efforts at teaching spatial concepts to
the children, he decided.
The effort he puts into his books is
extraordinary. Zelinsky spent months
researching the Rapunzel character
and considering the ways he would
draw her. He managed to buy rapun-
zel seeds (the name is actually that of
a plant) and then grew them, and the
flowers filled his home.
As with all of his books, Zelinsky
followed it to the end, even accom-
panying the publisher to the printing
press. A color might be slightly off,
he explains, "and I want to be there
to fix it." In any case, he loves watch-
ing the printing press at work.
At first, winning the Caldecott didn't
affect him emotionally, he said. But
there was a moment on a Friday
night when he felt everything.
He had gone to synagogue with
a friend and the building was
grand, the lighting theatrical, he
says, and the singing reverberated
throughout the building. Sitting
there, in a room filled with splendor,
he recalled all his own work —
three years' worth — which he had
put into Rapunzel and then, at last,
the Caldecott. "Suddenly," he says,
"I just started sobbing."

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7/24
1998

Detroit Jewish News

67

