Grant and Tillie Go Walking

by Monica Kulling

Sydney Smith (Illustrator)

Grant Wood believed that to be a real artist, he had to live in Paris. But once he got there, he realized that to be a great painter he needed to return to the people and places—and even animals—that he knew and loved the best.

Inspired by the life of artist Grant Wood, this is the sensitively imagined story of the great American painter and a cow named Tillie. Skillfully mixing fact with fiction, Monica Kulling’s text explores the making of an artist, while Sydney Smith’s illustrations echo Grant Wood’s own techniques. The result is a gently wise picture book that will encourage young readers and artists to trust the love that is sometimes only found close to home.

Includes an author’s note that provides biographical information about Grant Wood.

• ISBN10: 1554984467
• ISBN13: 9781554984466
• Publish Date: 17 September 2015
• Publish Status: Active
• Publish Country: CA
• Imprint: Groundwood Books Ltd ,Canada
• Format: Hardcover
• Pages: 32
• Language: English

Reviews

[Kait ✨]

I loved Grant and Tillie Go Walking! This book reminds me of a more simplistic version of a James Herriot novel for children. The epigraph is “I realized that all the really good ideas I’d ever had came to me while I was milking a cow. So I went back to Iowa. — Grant Wood.” Grant Wood is famous for his painting American Gothic, and his best work “show[s] the world the place he loved and the people he knew best.” Essentially, it’s about Wood’s preoccupation with his childhood home and his decision to shirk the conventions of the European “Master” painters and follow his passion, so to speak. The story resonates with me, and such lines as “Heading westward on a train, the farms and fields outside his window made his heart sing” sound like they could have come out of my travel journal. The best part is the illustrations—they’re beautiful, and I’d hang them up on my wall if I could.