PPBF: The Secret World Of Walter Anderson

Today I am super excited to share that my book,

What's Under Your Cape? SUPERHEROES of the Character Kind,

has won the Mom's Choice Gold Award for Adult Books.

I am feeling oh, so grateful. What a wonderful honor.

And if I wasn't jazzed enough, it's also the return of PPBF.

Title: The Secret World of Walter Anderson

Author: Hester Bass

Illustrator: E.B. Lewis

Publisher: Candlewick Press

Date: September 8, 2009

Suitable for ages: 8-12

Picture Book Biography

Themes: creativity, artistry, individuality

Brief Synopsis: This book tells the story of reclusive painter Walter Anderson.

Opening page: There once was a man whose love of nature was as wide as the world. There once was an artist who needed to paint as much as he needed to breathe. There once was an islander who lived in a cottage at the edge of Mississippi, where the sea meets the earth and the sky. His name was Walter Anderson. He may be the most famous American artist you’ve never heard of.

Resources:  *Read a review at The Picnic Basket {here}.

*Read about the life of Walter Anderson {here}. 

*Watch an author interview {here}.

*Read more at the Seven Impossible Things Before Breakfast blog {here}.

*Talk about Walter's odd obscurity with your budding artists.

Encourage students to write a reader's response considering why they think Walter Anderson wanted to live on Horn Island, his private paradise. Do they have some things that they prefer would be kept secret? Is there anything that can't be kept a secret? Explain. Use this as a time to talk about secrets that we shouldn't keep.

*Listen to the song Me, Myself, I {here}. How does this ballad parallel Walter Anderson's story?

*Using a Venn Diagram, compare and contrast Walter Anderson's secret life with Charlie Anderson's secret life. Do you know this story? Charlie is a cat who lives two distinct lives with two different families, one by day, the other by night. 

What would they consider the same about their stories? 

What's different?

Why I like this book: The first reason it's special is that I got it from my mother-in-law for my birthday. I love it when people pick out books that they think I'll like. Secondly, it's just such a great metaphor for escape and expression. There was so much that people didn't know about Walter (known to his family as Bob) and he wanted it that way. On one hand, the book made me wonder why. Why would he want to leave his family for weeks at a time and hide like that? And yet, I can kind of understand his desire for privacy. Sometimes it's good to get away and enjoy your therapeutic resources, like drawing and painting, in private. By yourself. Alone. Additionally, I appreciate and connect with Ms. Bass' fluidity with words: He needed to paint as much as he needed to breathe.

Check out this book; I think you'll be intrigued, maybe even enchanted.

For today's other PPBF book reviews, visit Susanna Leonard Hill's blog.