Eat Up, Gemma - Softcover

Jan Omerod, author-artist of Who's Whose?, Ben Goes Swimming, and Emily Dances, who also illustrated Sky Dancer by Jack Bushnell, lives in Cambridge, England. In Her Own Words...

"I grew up in the fifties, in a series of small towns in Western Australia, with three older sisters. As a child I drew constantly and compulsively, inspired by beautifully drawn schoolgirl annuals from England. I secretly devoured forbidden American comics, poring over the draughtsmanship.

"I went to art school at a time when the practice of drawing was regarded as the underpinning of all activity in the visual arts'coming to know' by looking closely and recording honestly. All my options took me into the fine arts--drawing, painting, and sculpture. I was obsessed with the human face, figure, and gesture. I became an Associate of the Western Australian Institute of Technology and Design in Art Education and taught art in secondary schools on enrichment programs for talented students, then lectured in a teachers college and in art schools.

"As a young woman I was not very maternal, and intended not to have children. My first pregnancy was entirely unplanned. My books have largely been a celebration and savoring of the positive experience of parenthood I had not anticipated-the fun, warmth, and love. Designing picture books for young children, I am aware that such books are almost always shared by the child and a caring adult. I find the challenge of communicating with both child and adult-working on two levels in one book--a demanding, intriguing and rewarding task. I design picture books for children and adults because I depend on the adult to create the right atmosphere and help children read them. When this happens, it is a time for physical closeness and comfort, a quiet time for sharing ideas and feelings, for laughing and learning together. Anyone who takes time to share books with young children is rewarded and revitalized by the experience every time.

"My task as a visual storyteller is to observe, record, and edit. Some images go straight from life into a book. Most need to be carefully sifted, reinvented, reorganized. Telling a story with words and pictures is a little like watching a movie, then selecting the evocative moment like a still taken from a film. I need to capture the moment that has clarity and simplicity, invites empathy, and allows the reader to bring her own knowledge to that moment, to enrich it, and develop it according to her own life experiences.

"I now live in Cambridge, England with my two daughters, Sophie and Laura. We return to Australia to be with my family and friends as often as we can."

PreS Gemma of Happy Christmas, Gemma (Lothrop, 1986) returns in another story told by her bemused and inventive older brother. Here she's going through that frustrating (for parents) stage of being unwilling to eat anything. She throws her breakfast on the floor, and she bangs her spoon instead of eating with it. Finally, she becomes fascinated, while at church, with the artificial fruit on the hat of the woman who sits in front of the family, which gives her older brother an idea. As before, the text does not imply race, but Ormerod extends Hayes' witty prose with warm and lively illustrations of a black family dealing with a common problem, thus adding her own dimension to the story. Gemma, as before, is a lovable creation: stretching, banging, reaching, and conveying with every line the lively curiosity of her age group. When she finally begins to eat, no one is more thrilled than Gemma, last seen triumphantly flourishing a banana. This story sustains the first book's depiction of a warm and loving family, sometimes frustrated but always willing to understand and care for its youngest member. Christine Behrmann, New York Public Library
Copyright 1988 Reed Business Information, Inc.