by Sam Juliano
Polish film director Krzysztof Kieslowski’s Three Colors: Blue is the second part of a critically-praised 1993 trilogy made in France which features acclaimed actress Juliette Bincoche as a woman self-driven into isolation after her husband and child are killed in a car accident. Like the other films in the melancholic triptych, Blue makes frequent visual allusions to its title: numerous scenes are shot with blue filters and/or blue lighting, and many objects are blue. When Julie thinks about the musical score that she has tried to destroy, blue light overwhelms the screen. Blue has been often been given poll-position designation as the world’s most popular color, a perceived fact largely because it is the color of the sky and the oceans. Prime associations with this formally sedate and less conspicuous pigment are intimacy, deep thinking and privacy, though it is vigorously opined that the color is symbolic of loyalty and cognizance of the past.
Children’s book artists in recent years have lavished much of their pictorial attention to the color, and the result has yielded some sumptuous works. Isabelle Simler’s French import The Blue Hour, features thirty-two blue colored ovals, each exhibiting a different shade of blue are labeled with the corresponding color. Even the instructor will be hard pressed to immediately recognize some of the eclectic variations, such as “porcelain,” “cerulean,” “Maya” and “periwinkle.” Peter Sis’ Robinson, a dreamy take on the Daniel Dafoe classic is as exquisite an interpretation of the color as portal to adventure, while Mordecai Gerstein’s dominant employment of an aquamarine variation still made for a veritable feast for the eyes of blue denizens. In 2018, Laura Vaccaro Seeger, who six ago gave the color green a vital new interpretation in her Caldecott Honor winning Green, in suffusing the work with renewal and re-birth has applied the same formula on her new work, Blue, crafting seventeen double page canvasses that is unison provide young readers with the picture book equivalent of the images filmed by cinematographer Slawomir Idziak in the Kieslowski film. Each ravishing tapestry resonates with thematic richness, bringing astonishing emotional heft to a simple story of a boy’s love for his dog during the formative years. Seeger insists that the color is a vital force of nature in the life cycle, that it defines human interaction with a canine companion, can be hot or cold, is present at birth and at the end of life and exerts soulful energy during those priceless moments meant to ensconced in the sphere of memories. A champion of acrylic paint on canvas board base, Seeger’s thick applications of converging shades of the color produced a stunning cover, again like on the cover of Green bleeds on to the white lettering denoting the title with almost storm-like intensity. It’s gorgeous.
Puppy and toddler are asleep in the opening where powder a powder blue blanket, rattle, and stuffed bear established the early bond that brings together the two life forces, as blue makes its entry in the most fledgling shade forging a pastel innocence. Much like a two-floored restaurant with a square shaped opening so both levels can be connected, Seeger’s circular cut outs sustain thematic continuity, with the first conjoining a hole in the rattle with a blueberry bush on the next immersion of the color when child and canine in wagon complete berry picking in a saturated canvas aptly titled “berry blue”, with the cut outs color-coordinated with the bursting blue purple of a fruit once immortalized by Robert McCloskey in Blueberries for Sal. The color has always been a proven favorite of kid artists whose imaginations often give blue a more all-encompassing pictorial role. To that scenario the author-illustrator leaves matters inconclusive with “Maybe blue”, even if our protagonists make no bones about their preference in the drawing. Paw prints morph into the beautiful spots on the wings of butterflies in a buoyant bonanza of blue and its turquoise cousin as boy and dog engage in outdoor exuberance.
The boy is noticeably older in an aquatic arena splendidly negotiated in shades of blue, aquamarine and cresting whites framed as “Ocean blue.” The large beach ball transforms into a red balloon. one of a flock of the colorful airborne wonders unleashed by the boy with canine approval in “Sky blue” winsomeness. The purple balloon then yields to a nocturnal bedroom and a clock denoting the blackish toned “Midnight blue”, when boy and dog are overtaken by deep slumber after a day of activities. Two draw knobs on a lamp chest become part of a book exhibiting planets as boy and dog engage is a tug of war over a light blue kerchief with both participants asserting ownership – “My blue.” The ball on a lampshade string takes on lunar proportions in a blue backyard tent depiction where the inseparable mates gaze at the pages of a book illuminated by flashlight in quietude (“Quiet blue”). The top of the boy’s woolen hat becomes the body of a chick perched on the head of the dig frolicking in the quintessential summer cool off depiction which Seeger fabulously paints with three-dimensional prowess. (“Silly blue.”) But when there are glorious days, there are also those requiring an umbrella like the succeeding canvas of boy and dog taking refuge under a blackened sky in the “Stormy blue”
Seeger compassionately renders the portrait of an ailing dog for her young readers as something inevitable (“Old age”) in a scene of exceeding sadness as the dog rests on a blanket, no longer interested in food and bones and then the author rips your heart out as this older teenage boy sits with his knees crossed embracing the companion he senses is slipping away. His lifelong devotion brings the most sturdy and lasting definition of the color yet – “True blue.” Only the hardest of hearts could fail to be reduced by this wrenching depiction of how difficult it is to part with a loved one. Perhaps the book’s most shattering canvas is the one showing the boy is side profile silhouette (“So blue”) which recalls last year’s Caldecott Honor winning Big Cat, Little Cat where the family members huddle in stunned silence after their beloved older feline has died. Seeger’s meditative tapestry, which includes a light brown sail formed by the dog’s powder blue scarf gives a clue to what will follow. The rich turquoise-blue at dusk spread is surely Blue’s most spectacular and it’s enormously moving. Next we see the boy again as an older teen meeting a girl walking her own smaller dog in a park This transformation scene is the only one in the book Seeger hasn’t labeled as it is clear enough how the boy’s life will make another turn. Sublime turquoise wave crests usher in two new relationships, as the boy is going steady with the girl he met and by extension has another dog in his life, with “New blue” embossed on the sand. Everything has come full circle, with a doleful, if endearing salute to the dog he grew up with the blue scarf hanging from a back pocket.
No picture book released in 2018 quite matches the emotional clout Seeger has quietly mounted in Blue. By transferring the central focus to a relationship as opposed to the regeneration of plant life on the planet she tapped into with Green she has broached all to real matter of life and death, new relationships and appreciation for what we have and the indelible experiences that define who we are. With remarkable minimalism and the highest level of illustrative sublimity one can bring to a picture book Seeger has probed the deepest of emotions while treating readers to a trenchant study of a beloved color. As magnificent a book as Green is, Blue, which matches it artistically makes that ever so profound human connection. A masterpiece and surely one of the very best works of the year on multiple levels.
Note: This is the third entry in the 2018 Caldecott Medal Contender series. The annual venture does not purport to predict what the committee will choose, rather it attempts to gauge what the writer feels should be in the running. In most instances the books that are featured in the series have been touted as contenders in various online round-ups, but for the ones that are not, the inclusions are a humble plea to the committee for consideration. It is anticipated the series will include in the neighborhood of around 25 titles; the order which they are being presented in is arbitrary, as every book in this series is a contender. Some of my top favorites of the lot will be done near the end. The awards will be announced in late January, hence the reviews will continue until around the middle of that month.