Wanda Ga'g

Here's an author that Paul grew up with that I don't remember at all from my childhood. Wanda Ga'g is among the illustrators credited with "reinventing" the modern picture book. Her art is like nothing I've ever seen in a children's book. The full-page spreads hold even young children rapt despite being printed entirely in black and white. The stories are all wonderfully strange (compared to the standard picture book) and make good use of repetition and rhyming.

She is most famous for Millions of Cats, a story about a man who goes out to find a cat but has trouble choosing. So, he brings home "hundreds of cats, thousands of cats, millions and billions and trillions of cats."

But I think my favorite is Gone is Gone (or the Story of a Man Who Wanted to Do Housework). It's an old Bohemian story that she remembered hearing as a girl. Not finding it in Brothers Grimm, she decided to write it down the way she remembered it complete with some vernacular. It's a familiar theme but the way she tells it is so sweet and so funny. Poor Fritzl blunders around exclaiming "Na, na! What's gone is gone" after every chore ends in ruin. And wise Liesi wraps it all up (after Fritzl cries uncle) by declaring, "Well then, if that's how it is, we surely can live in peace and happiness for ever and ever."

For illustrations, I think I like Snippy and Snappy the best. You can actually see the whole thing (in a pretty chopped up format) at Project Gutenberg. The illustrations match the text so beautifully.