BEN'S DREAM by VAN ALLSBURG, CHRIS - 1982

Boston: Houghton Mifflin and Company, 1982. 255 x 215 mm. (10 x 8 1/2"). 31 pp.
EXPRESSIVE MODELLED GRAY PIGSKIN BY JARMILA SOBOTOVÀ, covers with a three-dimensional image (taken from an illustration in the book) showing a small house seen through the strut-work of a bridge; flat spine with gilt titling, marbled endpapers, top edge gray. In the original suede-lined marbled paper chemise and matching slipcase, the latter with large, round black & white illustrations from the book on its sides. Illustrated throughout by Chris Van Allsburg. Signed by the author on the title page. In mint condition.

This is an imaginatively bound charming children's book by Caldecott Medal-winning illustrator Chris Van Allsburg (b. 1949) that tells the story of a young boy who falls asleep while studying his geography textbook and dreams of his house afloat in a great flood, drifting past major monuments of the world. Van Allsburg is known for playing with perspective in his illustrations, showing us the world from a child's eye view. Our binder has picked up on this, showing us a tiny house floating beneath the large struts of a bridge. Czech binder Jarmila Jelene Sobotovà was a professor of psychology before pursuing courses in drawing and painting, and studying bookbinding with Jan Sobota, her husband. After the two left their native Czechoslovakia for Switzerland and then America, Jarmila worked for a decade in the US in her own studio, gallery, and school of bookbinding and restoration. Her work has been shown in many individual exhibitions, and her bindings are well represented in private and public collections. The catalogue of an exhibition of the Sobotas' bindings in 1995 says of the work of Jarmila Sobotovà: "Though highly concerned with the technical aspects of bookbinding, there is strong artistic sensibility that stands out in Jarmila's work." While her work tends to be less whimsical than her husband's, it is undeniably imaginative and done with very considerable thought and skill..