One of my favorite aspects of picture books as a subset of children’s literature is their attention to the wonder that shimmers on top of or just beneath or within the serious business and repetitive routines of everyday life. What is “known” or “understandable” to us grown-ups becomes new, strange and/or changed by a special magic, a shift in perspective that is more open to possibility and its expansive processes — the whimsy, delight and awe that the kiddos in our lives are already often fully immersed in. Audrey Helen Weber’s work is a magnificent example of and call toward this shift in perspective, and their books are filled to the brim with equal parts nonsense, astonishment, dreamy logic and playful honesty.
Whether charting the adventures of a horse who has escaped their earthly pen and the kerfuffle that ensues . . .
Or dramatizing the emotional journey of a lonely soul in search of a friend . . .
Or illustrating a meta creation myth / modern folktale that playfully centers the agency of children in spite of — or perhaps because of — their young age . . .
Weber reminds us that the oppositions we fall back on to explain and structure our lives — the “serious” versus the “silly,” the “humorous” versus the “heartfelt,” the “old” versus the “young” — are more weirdly and wonderfully blurred. We, and our world, are rarely static and singular; we rarely experience one emotion or sensation or moment in isolation. We move because we are acted upon, and, in moving ourselves, we act upon others. We’re connected, basically and complicatedly. There can be pain or fear in that fact, but within Weber’s gouache washes, I also see this connection as a sacred power and affirming joy — as well as the reason for such enchantingly good fun.
