SLJ gives starred review to AS EDWARD IMAGINED by Matthew Burgess, calling it “required reading for independent spirits”
For children intent on marching to the beat of a different drummer and needing some encouragement to keep that beat, there could hardly be a better example (if not, perhaps, role model) than Edward Gorey—who, “when fame came calling,” Burgess writes in his admiring summation, “chose creative freedom above all.” Here in three free-form acts, the author retraces Gorey’s long, productive career from first drawing at a year-and-a-half and first novel at five (“about a vampire named…DRACULA. MUA-HA-HA-HA!”) to his role as costume and set designer for an award-winning Broadway smash “about a vampire named… DRACULA. MUA-HA-HA-HA!” and final move with his many rings and cats to Cape Cod. Pointing along the way to some of his visual, literary, and theatrical creations, all characterized by a “deliciously sinister sense of humor,” the narrative closes with celebrations of both his innate independence and his enduring, endearing oddball sensibility. Majewski evokes both with scenes in loosely brushed acrylics of a child with a distant gaze growing into a bearded icon in a shaggy fur coat, then lounging in a cluttered studio among cats, books, peculiar puppets, and vaguely menacing monsters or figures in Edwardian dress.
VERDICT: Required reading for independent spirits—not to mention any future fans of Lemony Snicket, Tim Burton, or practically any other modern writer or artist of Gothic bent.
