Books Illustrated celebrate International Book Giving Day & Library Lovers' Day at the Lu Rees Archives...

Over the last few days we have been working at the Lu Rees Archives  preparing the final details for our Bob Graham exhibition:

 'A Bird in the Hand' 

Bob Graham: A Retrospective 

Canberra Museum and Gallery May 17 - Sept 5.

There will be a special preview viewing with Bob at the opening night of the CBCA Conference: Discovering National Treasures, Friday 16th May.

As it's International Book Giving Day we thought we'd share a few behind the scenes insights into the making of the exhibition...

Ann James selecting pieces from the archives of 'How to Heal A Broken Wing'

Nicky working on the spreadsheet of exhibition items...

Here are some sketches and photos of Buffy who went to live the UK with Bob & Carolyn and became the star of his own picture book - these & the beautiful dummy are some of the many treasures from the Lu Rees archives which feature in 'A Bird in the Hand' being curated now in Canberra to open at CMAG in mid May.

Buffy, who went to live the UK with Bob & Carolyn and became the star of his own picture book.

A beautiful dummy of 'Buffy: An Adventure Story'

Buffy!

 

Sketches of Buffy by Bob

The Lu Rees Archives is a comprehensive collection of books and other resources about authors, illustrators, publishers and their creative works. The collection includes over 25,000 books, with some 3000 of these in overseas translations in 53 languages, over 420 research files, and significant collections of authors', illustrators' and publishers' papers, manuscripts and artwork. The resources are publicly available, and visitors are welcome during opening hours.

The mission of the Archives is to enhance the appreciation of Australian children's literature by collecting, preserving and making available wide-ranging resources through programs, events and exhibitions. Lu Rees, the founding President of the ACT Branch of The Children's Book Council of Australia proposed in 1974 that there should be a collection of research files about Australian children's authors and illustrators together with a collection of their books. In 1980 this collection was deposited at the University of Canberra Library so it could be publicly available. The Archives is an incorporated body in the ACT, with a Board which includes the Management Sub-committee and the Foundation Sub-committee.

http://www.canberra.edu.au/lurees

Sue de Gennaro - our Guest artist at Fed Square, Saturday February 8

Fed Square Book Market
Sue de Gennaro - our Guest artist at Fed Square, Saturday February 8
Many may know of Sue's popular picture book The Pros & Cons of being a Frog which was shortlisted in last year's CBCA Book of the Year Awards. Meet Sue between 2pm and 4pm, as she demonstrates her quirky illustration style and have some books personally signed.

We will be featuring her most recent picture book – Max & George, written by Cori Brooke and published by Penguin Books. She'll also have work to show on the latest picture book she has illustrated Hairy nosed wombat finds a new Home which is written by Australian Children's Laureate, Jackie French, and due for publication, May 14th this year . Here's a sneak preview of one of the internal illustrations ...