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WORK TITLE: THE HOUSE NEXT DOOR
WORK NOTES:
PSEUDONYM(S):
BIRTHDATE:
WEBSITE: https://www.claudinecrangle.com/
CITY: Toronto
STATE:
COUNTRY: Canada
NATIONALITY: Canadian
LAST VOLUME:
416.906.1147
RESEARCHER NOTES:
PERSONAL
Born c. 1968; married, husband’s name William.
ADDRESS
CAREER
Writer, illustrator, printmaker, craft artist, and entrepreneur. Corporate fundraiser for a children’s hospital; designer and creator of a line of greeting cards, beginning 2001, and art prints. Volunteer for an arts organization.
AWARDS:Gold Medal, Moonbeam Children’s Book Awards, 2014, for Woolfred Cannot Eat Dandelions; Independent Press Best Children’s Book citation, 2017, for Priscilla Pack Rat.
WRITINGS
SIDELIGHTS
[open new]Claudine Crangle is a Canadian print maker, craft artist, and author of self-illustrated children’s books. She was raised in Bramalea, Ontario, a town where the rapid transformation from farm fields to suburbia in the 1970s brought about neighborhood names like “H Division,” where her family lived until she was twelve. In 1980 they moved to Oakville, a small town where people took pride in the grand trees and historic buildings. Afflicted with celiac disease, she had to deal with food-intolerance issues that often left her feeling alienated from peers. In school, art was always her favorite subject, and at home she enjoyed making booklets and writing plays.
Meditating on her youthful interest in words as well as images in an interview with Magination Press, Crangle related: “While I was a super chatty kid (and still am), I was more moved by pictures than words in children’s books. I always liked to draw and make things. I looked at books for images to copy and marveled at how the simplest images were often the most difficult to reproduce. I also loved books with lots of detailed images that I could get lost in. Probably the only time I was quiet!” Despite her keen interest in illustration, Crangle never imagined that she could make a career out of it and entered the workforce by getting a day job. But she continued taking evening art classes, and in 2001 she devoted her talents to a line of greeting cards that proved successful. She turned to making art prints as well and eventually created and published her first self-illustrated children’s book.
Crangle’s experiences with celiac disease inspired her to sympathize with afflicted youths and also raise awareness by writing Woolfred Cannot Eat Dandelions: A Tale of Being True to Your Tummy. A sheep in a pasture, Woolfred loves the taste of dandelions, but he gradually realizes that every time he eats them, he gets sick to his stomach. Finally accepting that he cannot change the results, he stops eating dandelions and contents himself with all the other joys of his ovine life. The diverse mixed-media illustrations feature everything from pen, ink, and waxy markers to linocuts and screen prints to burlap, linen, and leather. Both Crangle’s debut and her second book, Priscilla Pack Rat: Making Room for Friendship—part of the Social Emotional Learning Collection with Reading Is Fundamental (RIF)—were published in conjunction with the American Psychological Association.
The House Next Door is the tale of a contented, isolated old house made from the trees that grew on that very spot. Withstanding the blasts of strong weather that sweep over the open fields, the house is thrown for a loop when a couple of new homes are erected nearby. The house responds by closing some side shutters, and as a whole surrounding neighborhood arises, the house shutters every last window. But eventually it peeks out to realize that the neighbors are friendly, while the wind and weather are not so harsh as they used to be. For the illustrations, Crangle used paper stencils, rubber stamps, and leather pattern plates for the backgrounds, adding cardboard, matte board, cork, and other materials salvaged from recycling bins for the foregrounds.
A Kirkus Reviews writer appreciated how “intentionally off-kilter perspectives and unbalanced compositions … emphasize the house’s loneliness” and how the mood shifts from the darker early spreads to the open windows and better light of later spreads. In Booklist, Carolyn Phelan observed that “young children, who thrive on familiar places and routines, will probably relate to the story.” An Open Book contributor found the artwork “wildly creative” and praised The House Next Door as “heart-warming”—a “gentle, witty tale of how change can be difficult but doesn’t always have to be bad.”[close new]
BIOCRIT
PERIODICALS
Booklist, August, 2021, Carolyn Phelan, review of The House Next Door, p. 60.
Children’s Bookwatch, December, 2014, review of Woolfred Cannot Eat Dandelions: A Tale of Being True to Your Tummy.
Kirkus Reviews, July 1, 2021, review of The House Next Door.
ONLINE
Claudine Crangle website, https://www.claudinecrangle.com (April 21, 2022).
Magination Press website, https://maginationpress.apabooks.org/ (December 21, 2015), “Meet Claudine Crangle!”
Open Book, https://open-book.ca/ (July 28, 2021), “Claudine Crangle’s Fantastic, Wes Anderson-esque Artwork is a Perfect Backdrop to Her Story of How to Welcome Change.”
Picture Books, Eh!, https://picturebookseh.weebly.com/ (August 2, 2021), Claudine Crangle, “Making versus Drawing.”
me
I love to write, illustrate and "make" things - all in the hopes that what emerges from within, will engage others and inspire them to explore their own creative expression.
&
I've been cutting and carving and painting and gluing a lot of cardboard for my newest book - which launched in August 2021:
The House Next Door published by Groundwood Books - is now available... wherever you buy books ;)
I'm also building wool puppets, screen printing, designing moving paper sculpture .... and crafting new stories to illustrate.
Books, prints, creatures, cards and kits are my current focus.
you
Hire me to teach creative workshops, book me for presentations and readings, and reach out if you'd like to collaborate on a project!
See the contact page to email me. Join my mailing list if you'd like to hear about exhibitions, studio sales and other happenings.
AWARDS:
Priscilla Pack Rat; Making Room for Friendship
Magination Press/American Psychological Association (APA)
2017 Independent Press Best Children's Book
2017 Dragonfly Honourable Mention
2018 Shortlisted for the International "Illustrarte" Exhibition & Awards (Portugal)
Woolfred Cannot Eat Dandelions; A Tale of Being True to Your Tummy
Magination Press/American Psychological Association (APA)
2014 Gold Medal Winner - Moonbeam Children's Book Awards
Claudine Crangle is a multidisciplinary artist whose previous picture books include Priscilla Pack Rat and Woolfred Cannot Eat Dandelions. As a kid who loved to make things out of cereal boxes, she hopes that this book will inspire creativity and construction. All of the houses in this story were made of cardboard, paper, found objects and various other materials scavenged from recycling bins where Claudine lives, in Toronto, Ontario. www.claudinecrangle.com.
Claudine Crangle's Fantastic, Wes Anderson-esque Artwork is a Perfect Backdrop to Her Story of How to Welcome Change
DATE
July 28, 2021
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Claudine Crangle Groundwood Books Kids Club interview Books for Young People Picture Books
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The more closely you look at the artwork Claudine Crangle creates for her children's books, the more amazed you will be. Her newest offering is The House Next Door (Groundwood Books), a gentle, witty tale of how change can be difficult but doesn't always have to be bad. Crangle's sweet fable follows the titular house as a character rather than a simple building: He's been alone as long as he can remember, and when other houses suddenly begin appearing around him, he can't help but be alarmed, even closing his shutters to try to shut out this strange new situation. Once he's brave enough to look around though, the house finds something entirely unexpected.
The artwork that accompanies this heart-warming story is wildly creative. A multimedia artist, Crangle uses cardboard, fabrics, paint, and more to create fascinating, Wes Anderson-esque storyscapes. Much of the material for this project was scavenged from local recycling bins near her Toronto home.
We're excited to welcome Claudine to Open Book today to participate in our Kids Club interview series. She tells us about the message she hopes kids will take from the house's story ("we get to decide how we will respond to change"), two of her favourite – and very different – favourite books for young readers, and the part of the writing and publishing process that she loves the most.
Open Book:
Tell us about your new book and how it came to be.
Claudine Crangle:
cover_the house next door
The House Next Door is the story of a little house that is pretty content with his lot, which is alone, on an empty farm field. Of course, it’s not without challenges – the wind, for example is constantly pushing up against him and making his shutters rattle. When some new houses show up, he’s not thrilled by the change of scenery, so he closes his shutters. When more arrive the only way to block them out is to shutter every window.
I grew up in Bramalea, Ontario, in the early 1970s when farm fields were transformed into subdivisions so fast that the neighbourhoods had names like “H Division”, where I lived. Bramalea was new and affordable and attracted many new Canadians, like my family.
At 12, we moved less than an hour away, to Oakville, which was still a pretty small town back in 1980. The first thing my brother and I noticed was that there were huge trees everywhere, and that everyone looked the same. Many of the houses around ours had historical plaques, and our neighbours took pride in keeping things “as they were”. I now see that this story has been percolating inside of me for a very long time.
OB:
Is there a message you hope kids might take away from reading your book?
CC:
Accepting change is not easy – at any age, but it is part of life, and part of what makes life so beautiful, rich and surprising. Usually that’s very hard to see at first.
For a kid, this change might be the arrival of a new sibling who is taking up too much attention, for example. Soon that baby will become a playmate, co-conspirator, and possibly one of the most beloved people in their life. Or not – but that baby is here and the world has changed. We can’t avoid change – it keeps coming. The message I hope kids will take away is that we are not powerless – we get to decide how we will respond to change.
OB:
What do you need in order to write – in terms of space, food, rituals, writing instruments?
CC:
Screen Shot 2021-07-23 at 11.06.33 AM
A detail from The House Next Door
I’m incredibly lucky to have a dedicated, bright studio space in which to write and do artwork. It’s attached to our home, but you must walk across an exterior deck to get to it, and this transition helps with getting into a creative headspace.
That said, the studio is rarely where the initial ideas come from. I find that long car rides in the passenger seat are ideal for ideation. I never depart for a long trip without my notebook and pencil – where I scrawl bumpy notes and thoughts, and then stare out the window ruminating. Long train rides work too!
OB:
What defines a great book for young readers, in your opinion? Tell us about one or two books you consider to be truly great kids books, whether you read them as a child or an adult.
CC:
I have a lot of favourites, but two I’m thinking about are Hubert Horatio by Lauren Child and It’s a Secret by John Burningham. They are very different from each other, but each has a unique approach to a child’s viewpoint.
Hubert Horatio is a hilarious tale of a kid who needs to rescue his incredibly rich parents from ruin. My copy is in Italian – and maybe it’s even funnier in translation, but I keep going back and looking at that one. It’s a Secret is very quiet and absolutely magical about a dreamlike nighttime escape with the cat. In all of Burningham’s wonderful books he was a master of stepping into the shoes of a child. He has a real knack for capturing how parents sound to a kid. His books feel like he is speaking to both the parents and the children in equal measure – but clearly identifying with the child. I aspire to this.
OB:
What's your favourite part of the life cycle of a book? The inspiration, writing the first draft, revision, the editorial relationship, promotion and discussing the book, or something else altogether? What's the toughest part?
CC:
I think the early conceptualization phase is my favourite. I often begin by thinking more about the visuals. Through the imagery I can see the story coming together. I get pretty giddy when the prose and visual combinations are coming to life and working in tandem. I was playing a lot with cardboard before The House Next Door came to be. Using my hands is the best way to build on those ideas I got while riding in the car.
I think the toughest part is the waiting between editorial stages when I’m chomping to go. Of course, it’s worth the wait in the end, because when the whole project is just yours, it helps to have the input and perspective of professionals to ensure your ideas are resonating. It was an honour to be guided by the incredible team at Groundwood.
___________________________________________________
Claudine Crangle is a multidisciplinary artist whose previous picture books include Priscilla Pack Rat and Woolfred Cannot Eat Dandelions. As a kid who loved to make things out of cereal boxes, she hopes that this book will inspire creativity and construction. All of the houses in this story were made of cardboard, paper, found objects, and various other materials scavenged from recycling bins where Claudine lives, in Toronto, Ontario.
Meet Claudine Crangle!
MagPress December 21, 2015 1 Commenton Meet Claudine Crangle!
Claudine Crangle, author and illustrator of Woolfred Cannot Eat Dandelions
Claudine Crangle, author and illustrator of Woolfred Cannot Eat Dandelions
Meet the delightful and talented Claudine Crangle, author and illustrator of Woolfred Cannot Eat Dandelions: A Tale of Being True to Your Tummy, and read on to learn a delicous way to actually eat dandelions!
What’s your normal writing process? How do you decide what topics to write on?
I’ve written about my personal experience. When I wrote my first book, and spoke at celiac events, I would talk about how alienating it was growing up in the 1970s when nobody else seemed to have a food intolerance. I was so moved when younger children would want to meet me and tell me that they had celiac disease too. I would love our little chats about what they missed most. Woolfred was the result of wanting to help kids understand their feelings around this.
WOOLFREDcmyk
Now I’m working on a story that has nothing to do with food or illness—and I’m pretty excited to be leaving a place I’m so familiar with. I’ll always be happy to speak to people about food intolerance, but it’s time to travel beyond my comfort zone.
What is fun or unexpected about the writing process?
I think you work out how you really feel about something when you need to sum it up in so few words. Explaining how it felt when I was growing up and finding an authentic voice meant I had to dig deep. Writing this book helped me to clarify my own feelings.
I’m most attracted to kid’s books with an element of humor, and I really enjoyed thinking about goofy ways to address unpleasant outcomes of eating the wrong foods. For adults and kids alike, these symptoms can be associated with shame. Humor feels like the best way for me to respect these feelings and tell the truth without being crass or offensive.
I’m a very visual person—and I see the image that would accompany the text as I write. I love the play between these two elements that is unique to picture books.
Speaking of your visual side, tell us about the illustrations in Woolfred.
This is my first illustrated book. In school, art was always my favorite subject, but I never believed I would make a living at it. I got a “day job” and took art classes in the evenings. In 2001 I started a simple greeting card line that took off, giving me the confidence to expand into art prints—and finally I sent off a manuscript with a few sketches.
While I was a super chatty kid (and still am), I was more moved by pictures than words in children’s books. I always liked to draw and make things. I looked at books for images to copy and marveled at how the simplest images were often the most difficult to reproduce. I also loved books with lots of detailed images that I could get lost in. Probably the only time I was quiet!
How were these illustrations created? What materials did you use?
I used many techniques in this book including linocuts for the dandelions and distant/smaller versions of the sheep. I made the landscapes by rolling inks onto frayed linen, burlap, and leather, which were then pressed onto paper. The characters are drawn in pen and ink and then colored with inks and waxy china markers. A few backgrounds were screen printed to make blocks of flat color or fine detailed patterns.
Essentially the book is made out a collage of all of the aforementioned elements cut and assembled together. This was useful as I could position and reposition characters and dandelions on the background until I got them where I wanted them. Today, most artists would do much or all of this on the computer. As I don’t use the computer in my work at all, I took the final artwork to a professional art scanner to create digital files for the designer to work with.
Tell us about your process.
With so many techniques being used, there needed to be an element that made it all cohesive. Imposed limitations are a big part of my process. With Woolfred I decided early on that the color palette would be limited to only a few colors.
Being low-tech, my process started with blocking these colors in paper dummy books to look at the flow. I’d glue down large chunks of color using construction paper and then photocopy sketches and block prints and cut and paste them into the books along with the text to ensure I was leaving enough space and keeping the limited palette from getting too repetitive.
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I recognize that this is an archaic way of working given what technology can do—but it’s how my brain likes to create. It’s the same process I would have used making books as a kid!
What was fun or surprising about the illustration process?
Not having illustrated a book before I wasn’t prepared for how hard it would be for me to keep a character looking consistent from every angle and mood. Woolfred began as a very different looking sheep, so it was interesting to see him naturally evolve into the final character.
Sketches of Woolfred and his sheepy pals.
So, what do you do when you’re not writing books?
I work for a children’s hospital as a corporate fundraiser. I also volunteer for an arts organization and typically have two or three art projects on the go at any time. I cannot imagine life without lots of creative outlets!
How does it feel to be a published author?
When I was little I remember afternoons alone making little books and writing plays. It’s still hard to believe I’ve had a picture book published! Now that I know it’s really possible, I’m hoping there will be more.
It’s such a thrill to walk into a bookstore and see your name on the spine of a book on the shelf. Even better is witnessing a child experiencing your book first hand.
Any advice for new authors?
I’m a new author, so not sure what sage advice I could give—except that every author was once an aspiring author. It’s hard to get past our own sense of inadequacy—but putting yourself out there is so worth it!
What was surprising or different than you expected about getting a book published?
I had no idea how long the process was. It’s a very long incubation. In my case that was good—I had a lot to learn!
Do you have any fun facts to share that readers might not know?
I spent a long time immersed in the world of dandelions in preparation for this book. Dandelions are actually quite tasty—their leaves can be served raw as salad or fried up with oil and garlic. They are very bitter and take a lot of chewing.
Making versus Drawing, by Claudine Crangle
8/2/2021
2 Comments
Picture
Picture
I feel more comfortable with a knife in my hand than I do with a pen or a brush. I’m not sure what this says about me, but I think that something about cutting intimidates me less than drawing – even though it’s clearly final. You can’t erase a cut.
As a printmaker, I cut out colour blocking shapes using my knife to create the forms that will be translated in print.
In The House Next Door – the backgrounds involved cutting paper stencils, carving rubber stamps and making pattern “plates” from leather shapes. Paper stencils were used to screen print, rubber was carved to stamp details, and leather was coated with oil-based ink then hand rubbed onto the paper. It was all very low-tech – and an extremely messy operation.
The houses themselves are also knife driven. Cardboard, matte board, cork and other finds from the recycling box were transformed with this favoured tool. Add glue and some paint and you have a neighbourhood.
Picture
While I hope that the book will inspire house building - and map making - I’m certainly not recommending kids work with knives. Not unless there’s an adult handy (or a handy adult?) available to take direction and do the cutting.
Instead, I’d recommend using existing boxes as a starting point. One of my favourite tricks is to take a box you’d normally just toss (from, say crackers or cereal) – and carefully take it apart at the side seam. Turn it inside out and re-glue the box together. Ta-da! Now you have a blank canvas to draw on (if drawing is for you!) alternatively, you can just use school scissors to cut out windows, doors and details from magazines or other recycled packaging and glue them on with a glue stick. The materials are abundant, if you look carefully, you’ll find all kinds of creative ways to re-use – and the possibilities are endless.
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Claudine Crangle is the author and illustrator of Priscilla Pack Rat, and Woolfred Cannot Eat Dandelions (Magination Press/American Psychological Association). Her first Canadian publication – The House Next Door, with Groundwood Books was published August 2021. Claudine often creates her worlds out of what she finds in the recycling bin. She hopes that the houses in her upcoming book will inspire kids to build their own. She lives in Toronto with her husband, William. Their studio overlooks an alley, where they like to watch (and do voiceovers) of the urban wildlife outside their window. To learn more visit www.claudinecrangle.com
Crangle, Claudine THE HOUSE NEXT DOOR Groundwood (Children's None) $19.99 8, 3 ISBN: 978-1-77306-368-3
A house learns to adjust to change.
The house stands in an open field and, alone, withstands occasional harsh weather. Seasons pass, and the house forges on alone—until the day the wind blows “something unexpected his way.” Two new dwellings have been built relatively close to the house. The house responds by closing his shutters. After many years, a road is built near the house, and “row upon row of blank faces” stare back at him when he opens his shutters. A neighborhood of houses has been erected (fashioned in the illustrations from cardboard cutouts), and the house closes his shutters again to them all. When he finally opens some side shutters to take a peek at what’s around him, he sees rows of houses made from a wide array of materials, and he finally seems to accept his new neighbors. The illustrations feature photographs of 3-D models of the houses accompanied by spare and textured drawings and collage elements in pictures with intentionally off-kilter perspectives and unbalanced compositions that emphasize the house’s loneliness. Darker, shadowed spreads shift to ones filled with light after the house decides to embrace his neighbors. The narrative initially seems to hint the story will be a The Little House–like one about urban sprawl (with the initial sameness of all the new homes), yet it shifts to being one about accepting change. There’s little here to convince children to care about the house; similar stories have been told with significantly more inviting characters, Virginia Lee Burton’s classic just one of them.
Unsuccessful. (Picture book. 6-10)
Copyright: COPYRIGHT 2021 Kirkus Media LLC
http://www.kirkusreviews.com/
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"Crangle, Claudine: THE HOUSE NEXT DOOR." Kirkus Reviews, 1 July 2021, p. NA. Gale General OneFile, link.gale.com/apps/doc/A667042250/ITOF?u=schlager&sid=bookmark-ITOF&xid=3d127a4a. Accessed 12 Mar. 2022.
The House Next Door. By Claudine Crangle. Illus. by the author. Aug. 2021.44p. Groundwood, $19.99 (9781773063683). PreS-Gr. 1.
Built long ago from trees that grew "right where he stood," a little house stands alone, overlooking a field. His back shutters are closed, protecting him from driving rains, howling winds, and drifting snow. One season, two new houses appear on either side of him, far away. He slowly closes and bolts his shutters on each side. A road and more houses appear, covering his field. Now he slams the last shutters "for good." But one summer day, he cracks open a shutter and sees a billowing curtain wave from a nearby house. Feeling the sun's warmth, he gradually opens the shutters to the community of fascinating houses that surround him and protect him from harsh weather. Young children, who thrive on familiar places and routines, will probably relate to the story, which reads aloud well. The multimedia illustrations, which incorporate three-dimensional houses built of cardboard, paper, and found objects, have a distinctive look. An attractive picture book from the author-illustrator of Woolfred Cannot Eat Dandelions (2014) and Priscilla Pack Rat (2017).--Carolyn Phelan
Copyright: COPYRIGHT 2021 American Library Association
http://www.ala.org/aboutala/offices/publishing/booklist/
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Phelan, Carolyn. "The House Next Door." Booklist, vol. 117, no. 22, Aug. 2021, p. 60. Gale General OneFile, link.gale.com/apps/doc/A689976840/ITOF?u=schlager&sid=bookmark-ITOF&xid=7661b7f6. Accessed 12 Mar. 2022.
Woolfred Cannot Eat Dandelions: A Tale of Being True to Your Tummy
Claudine Crangle, author/illustrator
Magination Press
American Psychological Association
750 First Street NE, Washington, DC 20002
9781433816727, $14.95, www.apa.org/pubs/magination
"Woolfred Cannot Eat Dandelions" is a story to help children understand food intolerance, and learning to accept and live with it. The gentle limited palette illustrations in shades of gray, yellow, green, and white, present a young sheep's experience testing the limits of a dandelion intolerance. Because Woolfred loves dandelions so much, at first he cannot accept that whenever he eats them, he gets very sick in his tummy. But after trying several different ways to eat them with the same, tummy-gurgling results, Woolfred learns to accept his dandelion intolerance, and ventures out to enjoy as many other life experiences as he can while honoring this limitation. A handy Note to Parents and Caregivers give additional suggestions for ways to help children cope with food intolerances.
Copyright: COPYRIGHT 2014 Midwest Book Review
http://www.midwestbookreview.com/cbw/index.htm
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MLA 9th Edition APA 7th Edition Chicago 17th Edition Harvard
"Woolfred Cannot Eat Dandelions: A Tale of Being True to Your Tummy." Children's Bookwatch, Dec. 2014. Gale General OneFile, link.gale.com/apps/doc/A394112518/ITOF?u=schlager&sid=bookmark-ITOF&xid=0b93c3e7. Accessed 12 Mar. 2022.