Delphine Durand is a favorite picture book maker of mine. She has a hilarious and ingenious way of personifying emotional states. For example, in Big Rabbit’s Bad Mood, the bad mood is literally a galumphing gray beast that stalks rabbit through his house. (“Big Rabbit had a big, bad, hairy mood that stuck to him like glue.”)
In Bob and Co., Durand opens with a simple line-drawn character called “Emptiness.” (“On the blank page there’s a vast EMPTINESSS all alone.”) Our lonely character is soon joined by the characters of Sky, Earth, Water, who jostle and cavort until Emptiness gets pushed off the page.
Isn’t that clever?
