The Slowpoke Illustrator Gift Guide

Around this time last year I wrote a gift guide recommending some favorite picture books, most of which were old and out-of-print. This year I planned to write a gift guide recommending recent picture books that are easy to find, but I was busy and put it off. And when I finally sat down to do it, I got to thinking about illustrators that I love, and I fell down a different rabbit hole than the one I meant to fall down.

Here is an incomplete list of great contemporary illustrators and a few book suggestions for the holidays: kids books, adult books, art books, and zines. It is short and sweet. It’s an international list so some of these books will take forever to get to you and won’t possibly arrive in time for Christmas. In fact, I don’t know if any of these books will arrive in time for Christmas. It’s an ill-timed holiday gift guide, offered humbly to you by an artist who doesn’t really go in for gift guides anyway. Enjoy!

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Beatrice Alemagna

A legendary Italian illustrator of books for kids. I would like to own anything illustrated by Beatrice. You can find lots of her books at Bookshop.org.

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Christian Robinson

I love Christian’s art and his way of moving through the world. Lucky for us, he has made lots of books and they are everywhere. I especially like You Matter by Christian, School’s First Day of School by Adam Rex (who is a great illustrator himself), and Last Stop on Market Street by Matt de la Peña.

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Gérard DuBois

Singular french illustrator living in Montreal. His illustrated editions of Cormac McCarthy novels for the Folio Society look magnificent.

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Jesús Cisneros

Spanish illustrator with a wide-ranging and gorgeous practice who can do no wrong. He recently illustrated The Tempest and it’s spectacular. See for yourself.

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Júlia Sardà

Another brilliant Spaniard and a writer/illustrator of great picture books. I love the The Queen and The Cave by Júlia and The Liszts by Kyo Maclear.

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Katharina Kulenkampff

Katharina lives in Germany and has risograph printed zines for sale on her website. I bought a book about spiders from her once and it’s a prized possession.

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Leanne Shapton

Visionary, poetic book maker and art director currently helming The New York Review of Books. Guestbook is beautiful.

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Sophy Hollington

Sophy makes cosmic, wildly laborious linocut illustration. Her edition of Dante’s Inferno goes on sale in February. It looks absolutely epic and you can pre-order it now.

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Did I introduce you to a wonderful, new illustrator? I hope so.

I also hope that your holiday season is treating you well; that your year is winding down in an unchaotic way; that your people are happy and healthy.

Love,
Carson

A note about bookshop.org:

If you must order online, this website is a great alternative to amazon. They have most things, and they are an organization with a mission to support independent bookstores. Find out more about how that works here. Your order will not arrive as quickly as it would if you ordered it on amazon, but that kind of consumer expectation is destroying the world as we know it so that’s probably for the best.

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