Cover to Cover

For young readers — and for older bookworms who remember curling up in the library’s children’s section — Leonard Weisgard’s lush and warmly artful illustrations provide a trip down memory lane. Weisgard, who lived from 1916 to 2000, created the art for more than 200 children’s books, most notably with author Margaret Wise Brown beginning with the Noisy Books series in 1939 and including The Little Island, which won the Caldecott Medal in 1947. His work, which blends folk art with Modernist techniques, is on display at the Eric Carle Museum this spring, so that families and admirers can get up close to 20 newly-restored pieces that combine pen and ink with paint, chalk, crayon, and decoupage.

Magician of the Modern: The Art of Leonard Weisgard. The Eric Carle Museum of Picture Book Art, 125 W. Bay Road, Amherst. Through June 5.

                                                                                                                                                                                 — Hunter Styles