A house without books

Transcript

I didn’t come from a house where there were a lot of books. I always say that you know we had the Sears catalogue and then there was a romance novel that kept the table from wobbling. My mom read some, but we were sort of the TV generation in the 60s and when we weren’t watching TV we were probably outside.

I found my way to reading through comic books, pictures, visual storytelling. From there I found my way to books that were like comic books, fantasy novels, pulp fantasy novels, that sort of thing. Then I found my way to reading. But it’s a legacy that I deal with today because I read very slowly, sometimes it’s difficult to find my way into the book for a while. That’s just because I didn’t do it a lot when I was a boy.

With a dyslexic father, an enticing television set, and a forest across the street, books were not an important part of Eric Rohmann's childhood.

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Eric Rohmann

Children’s Author

Eric Rohmann believes that each story needs illustrations that match its tone, content, and sensibility. As a children’s book illustrator, this means knowing how and when to use different media and techniques. For The Cinder-Eyed Cats Rohmann painted with oils. For his Caldecott Medal book, My Friend Rabbit, he used wood cuts. For his 2008 picture book, A Kitten’s Tale, Rohmann spent two months experimenting with a watercolor ink he had never used before. Trying new media can be scary, Rohmann admits, but it also keeps his artwork fresh. “Anxiety’s a good thing,” he says with a smile, “even for a children’s book illustrator.”

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A house without books

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Eric Rohmann