Carmen and the House That Gaudí Built

Written by Susan Hughes

Illustrated by Marianne Ferrer

Owlkids Books

978-1-77147-392-7

32 pp.

Ages 4-8

March 2021

Antoni Gaudí was a Catalan architect whose unique style marks a number of buildings in Spain and most notably in Barcelona. Just as alluring is Susan Hughes's fictionalized story, illustrated by the formidable Marianne Ferrer, of the development of Gaudí's idea for the home of the Batlló family, known worldwide as Casa Batlló.

From Carmen and the House That Gaudí Built by Susan Hughes, illustrated by Marianne Ferrer

While her family anticipates a move from the country to a city home in Barcelona, young Carmen despairs at leaving the wilds of the countryside and her imaginary salamander, Dragon.

   In the woods, hollows cradled them
close and hills tumbled them about.
   Water sparkled and the light showed
them colors everywhere.
   Trees swayed, gently, fiercely.
   Could Carmen ever feel at home in
the gray, straight, stiff city? Impossible!

But when Señor Gaudí visits, he spends time outside, with Carmen trailing. "We do not create," he said later. "We discover."

From Carmen and the House That Gaudí Built by Susan Hughes, illustrated by Marianne Ferrer

Carmen soon realizes that his visits, time outdoors and walks in nature feed his creativity, driving him to incorporate the organic into the structural, even seeing what Carmen sees, including her imaginary friend.

From Carmen and the House That Gaudí Built by Susan Hughes, illustrated by Marianne Ferrer

Her own visits to their unfolding city home reveal water lily tiling, curved embracing walls, blues of water, sunbursts and more. After two years of development, and saying goodbye to Dragon (prematurely), the family moves into Casa Batlló, and Carmen discovers that "This house–this city–could be a home for her after all."

From Carmen and the House That Gaudí Built by Susan Hughes, illustrated by Marianne Ferrer

Our world is peppered with extraordinary achievements from science to art and the stories of those achievements can be just as extraordinary or not. Susan Hughes could've just told the history of this jewel of architecture but she's a much better writer than that. By creating a back story for the house that Gaudí built which includes Carmen and her salamander, the building is a celebration of the natural world in a man-made structure, and becomes the home in which Carmen could rejoice as she had in the country. It becomes a story of imagination and creativity and creating by imagining. The outdoors becomes the indoors but only through observation, attention to detail and tribute. 

Just as glorious as Casa Batlló are Montreal artist Marianne Ferrer's illustrations. Blending a variety of media, including gouache and watercolour, Marianne Ferrer creates magic both in the outdoors of Carmen's natural world and in the evolving new house. Though her palette is relatively limited, she uses colour to emphasize the resplendent nature of the new house, jewelled as only a "better" version of nature could be. Moreover with characteristic boldness in her curved lines and shapes, Marianne Ferrer applauds what is natural, just as Gaudí did.

From Carmen and the House That Gaudí Built by Susan Hughes, illustrated by Marianne Ferrer

This may not be how Gaudí came to develop Case Batlló–though Carmen Batlló certainly did exist, as Susan Hughes's "Author's Note" tells us–but I hope it is. It reminds us that the two worlds, indoors and out, should not be separate, and that magic happens when the two meet.

Boxitects

Written and illustrated by Kim Smith

HarperCollins Canada

978-1-44345-611-1

40 pp.

Ages 4-7

September 2019

Whether cats or kids, boxes are a source of endless fascination and play.  Now, with the proliferation of makerspaces in libraries and play-based learning in kindergarten, building with materials such as boxes is all the rage, as it is for Meg, an architect whose medium is boxes.

From Boxitects by Kim Smith

Meg's mother, supportive of her child's creative endeavours, sends her to Maker School where there are "blanketeers, spaghetti-tects, tin-foilers, and egg-cartoneers" but, as a boxitect, Meg is a unique. There she learns about making structures useful, strong and beautiful.

From Boxitects by Kim Smith

Then a new kid arrives and she is an amazing boxitect too. But Simone does not hold back her advice to Meg, directing her how to improve her structures. So Meg reciprocates. The two little makers are obviously more interested in showing who is the better boxitect than working together, and this poses a problem when the annual Maker Match is announced and the children must work in teams. Unfortunately Meg wants to build a tree house and Simone is determined to construct a ship so the two children begin to create their own structures, each continuing to amend their own to be taller and more impressive. It's not until a catastrophe befalls the structure that Meg and Simone learn some valuable lessons about working with others to create.

From Boxitects by Kim Smith

Kim Smith, who illustrated the Ice Chips series by Roy MacGregor and Kerry MacGregor (HarperCollins Canada), adds the whimsy to her art through her use of colour and shape. There is no mistaking the boldness of Meg and Simone's creative work in the Calgary artist's illustrations produced digitally with Photoshop. Through edges straight, scalloped and round, doorways and flags of various shapes, and bright tints and patterns, Meg and Simone's maker structures reach the stars, fly off the pages, and spill out of the makerspace. They show the impact of exploration and imagination and encourage thinking outside the box. With her own originality of thought and art, Kim Smith demonstrates to little ones that looking at problem-solving from a different perspective or discovering new ways of expression is a win-win for makers big and small.

From Boxitects by Kim Smith

The Tallest Tree House

Written and illustrated by Elly MacKay

Running Press Kids

978-0-7624-6299-5

32 pp.

Ages 4-8

April 2019

Mip, the red mushroom-capped fairy, is a true kinesthete. She's always on the move, singing, flying and building. Her impetuousness has her challenging Pip, her book-loving, contemplative fairy friend to a tree house race after she sees him reading a book on architecture.

From The Tallest Tree House by Elly MacKay

Mip is all at it immediately, determined to make the tallest tree house ever and by sundown. Pip, on the other hand, sits on his rock among the Trillium, Erythronium and Aquilegia, and plans his build with precision and thoughtfulness.

From The Tallest Tree House by Elly MacKay

Slowly the two tree houses start to take shape, as Mip frantically and rather haphazardly builds and builds while Pip slowly but methodically creates his own.

From The Tallest Tree House by Elly MacKay

When "Gusts of wind send sprays of mist over the rocks" and "The leaves began to dance," Pip suggests Mip secure her tower. Of course Mip sees this as a ploy to slow her down and continues building. But when the wind and rain topple her tower into Pip's tree house and traps his wing, Mip comes to the rescue. Then, after the storm has passed, the two work together on a new tree house that incorporates both their structures into "a winning piece of architecture."

As her website's name and Twitter handle can attest, Elly MacKay truly creates theatre in the clouds. Through a laborious process that may appear to be like play–see full details at her website here–Elly MacKay blends inked figures and other structures cut from paper into a theatre in which she can manipulate the layers and lighting. It's a stunning blend of two-dimensional creations with three dimensions. Children are fascinated by the textures that come from her artwork and have been charmed by it in her picture books from If You Hold a Seed (Running Press, 2013) to her latter works including Butterfly Park (Running Press, 2015) and Red Sky at Night (Tundra, 2018). Couple that art with fairies and a competition that transforms into cooperation and partnership and The Tallest Tree House becomes a winner for all readers.

From The Tallest Tree House by Elly MacKay