As a child, Diane Goode loved books and art. She has been drawing
ever since she can remember.Of Italian and French descent, she
enjoyed the richness of both cultures and traveled to Europeevery
summer visiting family as well as cathedrals and museums. She feels
that these earlyimpressions helped shape her appreciation of art
and life. She studied art history at QueensCollege, but switched to
fine arts, in which she earned her degree.
Her love for Europe shows in the setting of many of her books Paris
in particular, where two ofher recent picture books, Where's Our
Mama? and Mama's PerfectPresent. take place. She drewon her
experience of living for a short time in Pennsylvania, to do the
art work for CynthiaRylant's story of Appalachia, When I Was Young
in the Mountains, for which shewas awarded aCaldecott Honor Medal.
Diane Goode has illustrated 27 books for children, including
anthologiesand stories she has written herself. She has always been
drawn to the classics and has illustratedmany of the traditional
fairy tales. Of her process, she says-
"I always begin with a rough dummy and then work on the individual
pages, sketching veryloosely and quickly to establish movement and
composition. I do these dozens of times,repositioning enlarging,
reducing, adding and omitting. There are always hundreds of
sketches foreach book. It sounds tedious, but it is the most
exciting part of creating a book. When I msatisfied with these, I
do the final art. All of my work is done on opaline parchment, a
thin butstrong paper. I sketch lightly in pencil and use water
colors applied with very fine sable brushes.Sometimes I use color
pencils with the paint to soften the atmosphere."
Diane Goode now lives in Watchung, New Jersey, with her husband
David, an author and collegeprofessor. Their son, Peter, attends
Rhode Island School of Design.
"Rylant delights in the simple joys of living with her grandparents
in the Appalachian Mountains: fresh cornbread, the swimming hole,
bathing in the tin tub, snakes, and the community church.
Surrounding all of these memories is the loving relationship with
her grandparents. Warmly rendered illustrations complement the
lyrical text."--School Library Journal
"An evocative remembrance of the simple pleasures in country
living; splashing in the swimming hole, taking baths in the
kitchen, sharing family times, each is eloquently portrayed here in
both the misty-hued scenes and in the poetic text."--Association
for Childhood Education International
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