SLEIGH BELLS AND SNOWFLAKES

Bronson (Just Think, 2001, etc.) selected 19 poems, including 11 traditional Christmas carols or well-known songs such as “Silver Bells” and “Jolly Old Saint Nicholas,” each serving as a springboard for her unusual illustrations. The familiar holiday songs and a few less familiar poems are secondary to Bronson’s stellar art, done in mixed-media collage using clay, paint, fabric, paper, and bits and pieces of ribbon, lace, fur, and trim. She uses elongated, stylized shapes in her work with a strong sense of motion: a little girl stretching to place the star on the top of the tree, angels stretching across a dark red sky, and a one-horse open sleigh with the horse ready to dash off the page. Bronson often uses a face in profile superimposed on the three-dimensional clay-sculptured head of a character, sometimes with one part of the face in a lighter shade and part in darker brown. Other characters fill an entire page: a huge Santa holding a child; the three wise men with glowing golden hats and wrapped gifts; a jolly snow man with real twig arms and a cloth scarf. Her whimsical collage style is bold and colorful, full of textures and motion. The poems and songs may be old chestnuts, but Bronson’s art is as fresh and surprising as an unexpected snowfall. (Poetry. 2-6)