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From Elisa with Advice & Kangaroos
Elisabeth MacIntyre (1916 - 2004) — called Australia’s best-known picture book writer and illustrator by The Sydney Morning Herald in 1966 — travelled the outback the hard way, won awards for her children’s books and wrote YA novels set in three different countries. Yet nothing in her life came easily.
Elisa’s story is about finding ways to thrive despite the hardships she faced: an absent father, an incompatible marriage, never much money and – perhaps her biggest challenge – profound hearing loss. Her struggles to gain both creative and personal self-confidence are told here in her own words, with humour and compassion, and illustrated by her distinctive and charming artwork. Filled with insights and advice about art, creativity and living life to the fullest, this is a fascinating memoir of an unconventional, adventurous and uniquely Australian life.
Elisa’s story is about finding ways to thrive despite the hardships she faced: an absent father, an incompatible marriage, never much money and – perhaps her biggest challenge – profound hearing loss. Her struggles to gain both creative and personal self-confidence are told here in her own words, with humour and compassion, and illustrated by her distinctive and charming artwork. Filled with insights and advice about art, creativity and living life to the fullest, this is a fascinating memoir of an unconventional, adventurous and uniquely Australian life.
250 pages, Paperback
Published February 11, 2023
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Displaying 1 of 1 review
April 23, 2023
This story is about Elisabeth McIntyre, an Australian children's book artist and writer, and and an artist in many other ways. She was also deaf, having lost her hearing when she was younger. This story of how she created her art, coped with deafness and her interesting and challenging life is told with obvious affection by her daughter, intertwined with reproduced quotes from others and lots of quotes from Elisabeth's own diaries.
I enjoyed the story very much and found Elisabeth's story to be very interesing - she's a great subject. I have an obvious bias being interested in children's book writing. Elisabeth's story brings us through several themes including her thoughts on the creative process; her challenges in creating art during the time period; the challenges of life generally at the time and with her hearing impairment; discussions of what children's book writing was like at the time; and interesting anecdotes about things like her travels. Elisabeth lived in both Italy and Japan and these included great stories.
I loved learning about things like children's writing, Australia, and the life of an artist and the challenges Elisa faced.
The writing is fairly clear and easy to read, aand there is very much the sense of the daughter's affection that comes through. We are privy to Elisabeth's voice through her diarry which is great, although sometimes I found that the way the quotes were intertwined wasn't always quite as smooth as it could have been.
The formatting of the book is very cute with lots of graphics such as bits of drawings, photos and snippets from letters that bring the book to life, very appropriate since Elisabeth wrote picture books.
I enjoyed the story very much and found Elisabeth's story to be very interesing - she's a great subject. I have an obvious bias being interested in children's book writing. Elisabeth's story brings us through several themes including her thoughts on the creative process; her challenges in creating art during the time period; the challenges of life generally at the time and with her hearing impairment; discussions of what children's book writing was like at the time; and interesting anecdotes about things like her travels. Elisabeth lived in both Italy and Japan and these included great stories.
I loved learning about things like children's writing, Australia, and the life of an artist and the challenges Elisa faced.
The writing is fairly clear and easy to read, aand there is very much the sense of the daughter's affection that comes through. We are privy to Elisabeth's voice through her diarry which is great, although sometimes I found that the way the quotes were intertwined wasn't always quite as smooth as it could have been.
The formatting of the book is very cute with lots of graphics such as bits of drawings, photos and snippets from letters that bring the book to life, very appropriate since Elisabeth wrote picture books.
Displaying 1 of 1 review