Julie Andrews’ Collection of Poems, Songs and Lullabies is an anthology to be published by Little Brown in the fall of 2009, and it is a collection of poems, songs and lullabies, not only our favorites from my childhood, from my mother’s childhood, from just our years of being lovers of poetry and appreciators or song lyrics, but also there are some selections in it that we’ve both written and a few that my father wrote and one that my mother’s father wrote, and even her grandfather. There are a few family contributions.
There are obviously many familiar favorites that I’m sure many people will know and recognize. Hopefully a few new ones and one or two never before published. It’s a very eclectic mix, and it’s divided into eleven sections with themes like nature or childhood or bedtime — familiar themes. Some perhaps not so familiar themes like optimism is one of our categories and the world at large and the sea, and it’s a fairly broad range of styles and ideas and different types of poetry and poems and lyrics.
It’s stunningly illustrated by James McMullan, the wonder artist, James McMullan who is probably best known for his work with his wife Kate on the I Stink and I’m Mighty and those wonderful books, but who is also an extraordinarily gifted theater poster artist. He’s the exclusive artist for the theater posters at Lincoln Center Theater and is prolific in his work and his paintings and has just an extraordinary body of work behind him.
For this anthology, he’s done close to 200 original paintings. At least one a page, sometimes more, and all across the map in terms of approaches and styles and whether they are literal or suggestive or figurative or landscape — they’re just extraordinary. It’s truly a work of art form that point of view. James’ illustrations alone I think they’re just breathtaking.
We are very fortunate to be including with the anthology a CD recording of my mother and I reading some of our favorite selections from the book, and there are a few of her reading alone and a few of me and then a few of us reading together. Hopefully once again, it’s a multi-disciplinary approach. We’ve been fortunate to have some original background music composed for the readings to support them and to be sort of an interstitial tissue between them.
Hopefully it’s giving kids not just great poems and great lyrics to think about and to read and to enjoy, but also wonderful art and a little bit of music and oral pleasure as well. Our hope is that it will be a shared family treasure. That’s really the goal is that it would be something that parents and grandparents will read with their children and will enjoy as much as their children do, and that those children will then grow up and perhaps share with their next generation of children.
