Hmm.
Lori Mortensen’s 2020 picture book Nonsense! The Curious Story of Edward Gorey is an odd creation. Not as odd as Edward Gorey, but still.
I like and respect Gorey’s work, and welcome discussions of it.
However, relatively few kids want books about authors, and I suspect, fewer still want books about older authors. This is, therefore, very much a niche picture book. Lovely as it is, it feels like a picture book largely aimed at adults, so they can share it with kids, saying, “Look! Here’s a book about that weirdo writer mom/dad loved so much! Isn’t it cool?” And like kids are mostly likely to say, “I guess…?”
Okay, that caveat out of the way, Chloe Bristol’s illustrations are great. They are not full imitations of Gorey’s distinctive story, but they definitely evoke it, and his sensibility. Mortensen’s factoids about Gorey’s life are intrinsically cool, and I’ve stored some of them away for later research. (How many grades did Gorey skip? How old was he when he read Hugo?) This book manages to convey Gorey’s independent spirit, and, to lesser degree, to explain it.
However, I keep coming back to the odd target audience. What kid responds to lines like “Remember The Hunchback of Notre Dame?” Rare ones, that’s who. Even the Disney animated version is almost 30 years old (24ish when the book came out).
So interesting, with good art, but recommended only for the few.
