Ian Falconer is an illustrator, set designer, and costume maker—he has drawn covers for The New Yorker and built sets for the New York City Ballet—but he is best known for Olivia, the charmingly impish pig of his children's-book series, which debuted in 2000 and is now a half-hour TV series (check nickjr.com for times). The muse for and namesake of his books' star was his niece. "She was very self-possessed at a young age," explains Falconer. "It was funny to see so much character in that tiny body." Though the real Olivia is now 16, he continues to look to her for inspiration as well as draw from his own childhood memories, including his favorite kids' books. Here, he shares them with us.
The 500 Hats of Bartholomew Cubbins and
The Cat in the Hat by Dr. Seuss (Random House)
Ages 4 to 8
"Seuss takes you from the most ordinary circumstances, then whisks you into the most improbable places, then drops you off back at home. The 500 Hats is like one of those dreams where you are running from something, but your legs are like rubber. Bartholomew Cubbins is a boy who is chastised for not taking off his hat in the king's presence but finds that he cannot: Every time he lifts his red cap, a new one springs up on his head. As a kid, I particularly liked that the hats became more and more wildly extravagant; that appealed to my nascent theatrical side. I also just thought this was an exciting, slightly scary—but not too scary—story.
"As for the illustrations, I always love the old two- or three-color litho process. Lithography was an early commercial-printing process. It was expensive at the time, and to do it cheaply, they used fewer colors. This forced them to make prints that were more graphic and less busy. For my illustrations, I follow the advice my former art teacher once gave me: 'If you can't do it with a piece of paper and a pencil, you can't do it.' Very good advice.
"The Cat in the Hat, of course, is a classic. It's about what the kids would really love to do to the house while Mother is out. In the end, everything gets tidied up, and Mother is none the wiser. My theory is that it all takes place in the kids' minds. But that is one of the great creative subtleties of Seuss: He always allows readers to participate, to bring their own imagination."
The Tintin series by Hergé (Little, Brown)
Ages 9 to 12
"These books are for kids older than the Olivia range, but the amazing illustrations and the terrific adventures still kill me. I think there is a natural harmony when a writer is able to illustrate his or her own story. I illustrated Olivia first, with a general narrative in mind, so that the visual flow would be the primary force—you can almost read it without words. The pictures do a lot of the work, so you don't want a redundant text that simply tells you what the pictures are. Hergé is the master of this balance. His drawings are so expressive and, at the same time, his plots are dazzlingly, engagingly complex.
"I read that Peter Jackson and Steven Spielberg are collaborating to turn the series into a movie. Bringing children's books to the screen almost never works very well. I hope they can pull it off with Tintin. Truthfully, I'm taking the chance [of putting my books on TV] because I need the money to do some of the other things I do that don't pay the rent, like opera, ballet, and nonprofit theater."
Higglety Pigglety Pop!: Or There Must Be More to Life
by Maurice Sendak (HarperCollins)
Ages 4 to 8
"This story is about Jennie's search for meaning in her life. Jennie is a dog who has everything—two pillows, two bowls, a red wool sweater—but still feels she's missing something. So she goes out into the world and finds herself hired as a nurse to feed a baby who refuses to eat. If Jennie does not succeed, she will be fed to a lion, as were the many nurses who came before her. This is a kind of existential tale, and I like that Sendak takes for granted that his young readers will be able to grasp the deeper meaning. Children are very smart—they have to be. Intelligence is a kid's only tool, his only way of finding out about the world: testing, probing. I think children like it when books don't talk down or explain too much. In my own books, most of Olivia's character and the family's responses to her, as well as their love for her, are shown with expression. Kids read the tiniest expression on people's faces and, well, it's the picture saying more than the words."
Make Way for Ducklings by Robert McCloskey (Penguin)
Ages 2 to 4
"I have a nostalgic love of ducks. My siblings and I grew up on an island, and we had many, many ducks. Animals make us very compassionate, and this book in particular has a lot of compassion. I also admire the drawings. The mother duck is so well portrayed—she holds so much character and pride in her puffed-out chest. She's all attitude. And the book is completely visual: McCloskey never describes the mother duck, only her decisions. Watching her march through the streets of Boston, the policeman rush to her rescue—well, this is a lovely side of human nature that I think everyone would like to see more of in the world."
