[Nonfiction Wednesday] A Picturebook Biography of the Delightfully Creepy Edward Gorey

Myra here.

We are delighted to dedicate our Wednesdays to featuring nonfiction titles, as per usual. We would also be linking our nonfiction choices with our reading themes throughout the year, when we can.

Our reading theme for October – December is Horror and Deliverance in Books. For nonfiction titles, we are targeting the following books that fit the following deliberately-nebulous criteria:

picturebook biographies of people who write creepy or scary stories
picturebook biographies of people who bring to light injustices and fight for redemption and deliverance from the horrors of inequality
picturebook biographies of people who are light-bearers

What better way to start off this quarterly reading theme than with a dose of creepy Gorey-isms.

Nonsense! The Curious Story Of Edward Gorey (Amazon | Book Depository)

Written by Lori Mortensen Illustrated by Chloe Bristol
Published by Versify (2020)
ISBN: 9780358033684 (ISBN10: 0358033683) Borrowed via Overdrive. Book photos taken by me.

I have always been fascinated by Edward Gorey and own a copy of his Amphigorey series. There is something very distinct about his strange and eerie drawings and his turns of phrase that make his creations easily recognizable.

I was taken by the book from the first full-page spread alone. What a tribute to the strangeness of Gorey’s characters. While this is the first picturebook of Chloe Bristol, I am hoping that this will not be her last. I felt that she was able to do Gorey’s art justice and made his spirit come alive in this short but comprehensive picturebook biography that encompassed the full length of Gorey’s life: from childhood to adulthood.

I devoured a Gorey on Gorey edited by Karen Wilkin, entitled Ascending Peculiarity (Amazon | Book Depository) and reviewed it here, which I am sad to report is not included in the list of sources found at the end of Nonsense. It would have been a good reference material that aficionados would do well to read too.

At any rate, I was immensely excited to finally find a PBB on Edward Gorey: he is such a singular individual that it may have been quite challenging to select which aspects of his life to feature in this biography written for children. Yet, the book creators managed to do so with aplomb, nonsensical humor, and grace – just the way Gorey would have wanted it, I believe.