This week I am working from home on a project. My current schedule is to come in every other Wednesday and on the weekends, while working from home on the days I’m not coming in. Last Wednesday, it being a consultation meeting more than an actual work day, I was scheduled to arrive at 11am and remain there until 2:30pm. I was over an hour late so I was only really there for about 2 hours but next week I will be there early and on schedule.
While at home, I was looking into a few links the professor shared with me on events/reviews he has done/received for the studio. One such review is for a book he illustrated titled César Chávez: the Struggle for Justice. Here we can see the cover, beautifully illustrated by Professor Accardo.
César Chávez (Griswold del Castillo)
The reviewer, María Cárdenas, describes how wonderfully illustrated the book is, stating how moving it was for her to see Chávez depicted as one of the people. Cárdenas went on to state how this is especially important for children and students to learn about Chávez’s strong connection to the people.
Amongst all this good praise, there is a negative part to her review; she claims the narrative is lacking, at best. Describing how the text was more like a history lesson rather than reading an entertaining children’s book. “…it’s flat and passionless. The sentences are short and choppy, more a recitation of facts than a story.” ( Cárdenas, “De Colores: The Raza Experience in Books for Children”) The full article can be seen here: Chávez book review
Some of the most notable books illustrated by Professor Accardo are the Nancy Drew Notebook Series, 1993. The books are based on the original story but featuring younger characters. The series was printed in the US, Sweden and Great Britain, each retaining their own version of the books.
Nancy Drew Notebook Series
Aside from using the same illustrations represented in the US editions, the Swedish edition has eight interior illustrations done in black and white while the British edition only used the interior illustrations. Rather than use the same cover design, they went with a cartoony illustration cover.
Swedish Nancy Drew Book Cover
British Nancy Drew Book Cover
You can see a full gallery of all the cover designs for this book at Accardo’s website.
