Tuesday, September 04, 2012

What is Cece Bell reading?

The current featured contributor at Writers Read: Cece Bell, author and illustrator of books for children including Bee-Wigged, Itty Bitty, and the Sock Monkey series and Rabbit and Robot: The Sleepover.

Bell's entry begins:
I am not a voracious reader because I am a slow reader. But when I recently finished Robertson Davies' The Salterton Trilogy (which was given to my husband by his editor, but stolen by me, and which very well may be the thickest book I've ever read), I was almost ready to re-read it immediately. Tempest-Tost (1951), Leaven of Malice (1954), and A Mixture of Frailties (1958) are Davies' first three novels (packaged together as The Salterton Trilogy), and all three are about the residents of the fictional university town of Salterton, Ontario. Funny as heck. Complicated, sometimes absurd, often bawdy, Davies, like Dickens, surprises you in the middle of the action by making sweeping statements about society and its institutions that stick with you for a long time. Highly, highly recommended. I loved this trilogy so much that I...[read on]
Cece Bell is an author and illustrator of books for children.

Her books include Bee-Wigged, Itty Bitty, and the Sock Monkey series for Candlewick Press; work coming out soon includes Rabbit and Robot: The Sleepover (also for Candlewick Press), illustrations for Crankee Doodle (written with her husband, Tom Angleberger, for Clarion Press) and for Bug Patrol (by Denise Mortensen, also for Clarion Press).

Publishers Weekly gave Rabbit and Robot a starred review, noting: "Bell’s... crisp, cheery cartooning adds visual punctuation and elaboration in all the right places, and she handles moments of both calamity and reconciliation with aplomb. Delightful."

Bell is currently working on a graphic novel for Amulet.

Visit Cece Bell's website.

Read--Coffee with a Canine: Cece Bell and Tuna, O.D., and Sue Bee.

Writers Read: Cece Bell.

--Marshal Zeringue