The Ballad of Valentine (Picture Puffin Books (Paperback)) - Softcover

Alison Jackson is the award-winning artist who created the BBC TV series Double Take and the internationally acclaimed Schweppes advertising campaign. After studying sculpture and then Fine Art Photography at the Royal College of Art in London, Alison's work, has for the last five years, astonished and sometimes shocked audiences on both sides of the Atlantic.

Tricia Tusa lives in Houston, Texas.

"In a cabin, in a canyon,/ Near a mountain laced with pine,/ Lived a girl who was my sweetheart,/ and her name was Valentine," begins Jackson's (I Know an Old Lady Who Swallowed a Pie) clever adaptation of the familiar folksong "Clementine." Tusa's (Mrs. Spitzer's Garden) sure black line and watercolors add another layer of hilarity to this story-in-song of a resourceful mountain lady and her harried suitor who, through a string of missteps, keep failing to connect. After giving his love letters "to a mailman/ To deliver, rain or shine," Valentine's beau tries more imaginative means, including a homing pigeon that gets sidetracked in Madagascar, and skywriting ("But the wind erased three letters,/ And you're now my -al-n-ine"). Meanwhile, the paintings show the industrious, pointy-nosed object of his affection just missing each message as she tends to frontier chores with a brisk cheeriness. The artist reassuringly establishes from the outset that the feeling is mutual: he keeps a picture of Valentine on his piano; she keeps a cameo of him on her bureau. Attentive readers will detect that the sweethearts' homes are not so far apart, and as the lovestruck fellow misses his target repeatedly, Valentine begins a holiday token of her own affection. It's finally Valentine's personal presentation of her gift that leads to the pair's rendezvous. This inspired treatment of an age-old tale communicates plenty about love. Ages 4-8.
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