Monday, October 6, 2008

Tasha Tudor, Psalms and Corgis--Oh My!


Well folkses, I forgot to mention (blown away by Owl's loving portrayal of Tasha Tudor) that I came across a little Tudor treasure at a Fourth of July fair in Nashville, Indiana, right before Owl betook herself from the Wolery and I stalked out of the Emerald City for Onion Town. What did I chance to behold but a first edition of Tasha Tudor's illustrated The Lord Is My Shepherd, the twenty third psalm, published by Philomel in 1980. And...Tudor had signed the book and sketched a little coterie of corgis sitting around in a circle! In Tudor's depiction of the famous psalm, a little girl moves through a country landscape accompanied by her faithful corgi. One little weirdness: at one point in "the valley of the shadow of death," girl and dog walk through a ramshackle cemetery, and what has Tudor done? She's placed her headstone, engraved with "T. Tudor" and artfully obscured dates, alongside the path! Wooo! Just in time for Halloween, folkses. The best part of this bargain: the book was priced at $15.00 and the seller described it to me as "cute" and was surprised when I recognized the illustrator. He didn't know what he had, and what with him being a dealer, I didn't enlighten him. Reader, I bought it, and may rejoice a little over my find, even from Onion Town.

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