But while I have indeed and oh so much enjoyed reading about the genesis of Jan Brett's personal version, of her The Mitten, I do kind of wish that instead of just telling us (showing readers) how she used several different Ukrainian folktale versions of the mitten story and why she chose to include and not include various aspects (such as the fact that she obviously did not want to write a story where someone actually ends up shooting at the sheltering animals), Jan Brett had also listed the specific and actual titles and literary sources of the tales of which she had made use (to create her own adapted and retold version of The Mitten). from Jan Brett's The Mitten is according to her informative author's note a combination, an original fusion of several similar Ukrainian folktales (in some of these versions, a group of shivering, cold animals find refuge in a discarded pot, whilst in others, it is a huntsman's lost mitten providing shelter, who then unfortunately also starts shooting at the animals inhabiting his mitten when he goes out into the forest looking for it and discovers that it has become a winter den for a variety of fauna). "From cave paintings to Norwegian sleighs, to Japanese gardens, I study the traditions of the many countries I visit and use them as a starting point for my children's books." Together with her husband, Joe Hearne, who is a member of the Boston Symphony Orchestra, Jan visits many different countries where she researches the architecture and costumes that appear in her work.
"I'm delighted and surprised when fragments of these beautiful images come back to me in my painting."
"It was overwhelming to see the room-size landscapes and towering stone sculptures, and then moments later to refocus on delicately embroidered kimonos and ancient porcelain," she says. The detail in my work helps to convince me, and I hope others as well, that such places might be real."Īs a student at the Boston Museum School, she spent hours in the Museum of Fine Arts. Now I try to recreate that feeling of believing that the imaginary place I'm drawing really exists. She says, "I remember the special quiet of rainy days when I felt that I could enter the pages of my beautiful picture books. During the summer her family moves to a home in the Berkshire Hills of Massachusetts.Īs a child, Jan Brett decided to be an illustrator and spent many hours reading and drawing. Jan lives in a seacoast town in Massachusetts, close to where she grew up. With over thirty three million books in print, Jan Brett is one of the nation's foremost author illustrators of children's books.
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