Blair Lent
Wednesday, February 4, 2009 at 10:24PM 
Blair Lent died last week. Lent was probably best known for his illustrations for Tikki Tikki Tembo by Arlene Mosel (1968), which was a childhood favorite of mine (and perhaps yours). I bought the Owlet paperback for my own kids before I even had any. They love it, too. Despite its problematic text.
Then last year I discovered Baba Yaga by Ernest Small; illustrated by Blair Lent (1966). I was in the process of reading every picture book retelling of a Baba Yaga story I could find at my library (there are many); this one--text and illustrations--was my favorite. It was only when I read Lent's obituary that I realized that author Ernest Small and illustrator Blair Lent were one and the same person. I don't think I've ever seen someone credited separately, by pen name and real name, for the same book, but I agree that Lent deserves a lot of credit.
Childhood
Reader Comments (4)
Someone had told me once about and author and illustrator who were one and the same, but I've not yet been able to dig up enough information to figure out whether or not it was true. I'm a Baba Yaga fan, and the Blair Lent version is one I've read, but I don't remember it. What is the problematic text?
I love Lent's Baba Yaga, maybe because she's not as scary as some others. What is your favorite Baba Yaga story? I wonder if we have it.
As for the problematic text, it's Tikki Tikki Tembo. There's some question about the origin of the story, and whether it's culturally insensitive.
Oh yes! Now I get it. And yes, the text is problematic, inauthentic, offensive-- as long as it's set in China. If it's set on Mars, then it's fine.
I like the Marianna Mayer/K.Y. Craft picturebook version of Baba Yaga with Vasalisa, but I really like Clarissa Pinkola Estes' version of the story in Women Who Run With the Wolves. I also really like "Baba Yaga and the Girl With the Kind Heart" from Old Peter's Russian Tales by Arthur Ransome. There is another story with a boy and a girl running from BY that follows the similar motifs of the "Girl With the Kind Heart" story. The comb turning into a forest and the towel turning into a lake are the motifs I'm thinking of.
Thanks, Farida! I'm going to look for the Ransome. There's an early reader by Joanna Cole called Bony-Legs that uses those motifs as well (illustrated by Dirk Zimmer; Simon and Schuster, 1984); the kids love that one.