"Tanglewood is back! This summer, for the first time since 2019, Tanglewood will offer a full season of concerts and events." My husband sings with the Tanglewood Festival Chorus, and this year's Beethoven's Ninth performance, conducted by Michael Tilson Thomas, was an especially memorable and moving one. 

But enough about music! While in the Berkshires, we happened upon the Norman Rockwell Museum's current, phenomenal exhibit Imprinted: Illustrating Race. "Over 300 artworks and objects on view of widely circulated illustrated imagery will be on view, produced from the late eighteenth century to today, which have an impact on public perception about race in the United States." Many (of the unproblematic ones) are by children's book illustrators! 

Concurrently running is In Our Lifetime: Paintings from the Pandemic by Kadir Nelson, and, well, look at this. Friends, it's the original artwork for the July/August 2020 Horn Book Magazine cover, illustrated by Nelson on the occasion of winning the Caldecott Medal and the Coretta Scott King Illustrator Award for The Undefeated by Kwame Alexander (!!!).

It's a play on the Caldecott Medal's imagery; see the slideshow below for more details about the cover art and a sampling of both exhibits, on view until October 30, 2022. If you're convenient to Western Mass, it's worth a visit. Pair with a trip to the Eric Carle Museum of Picture Book Art, perhaps? They're about an hour apart. And the R. Michelson Galleries are also close by. Not brought to you by the Western Massachusetts Travel and Tourism Agency, just by a picture book lover. More of us can be found at the Horn Book's Calling Caldecott blog -- which just relaunched for 2022. Happy viewing!