“If the cat comes, he’ll knock you off the fence with one jump and catch you with the next. Be still.” She was already at work with her sharp teeth, gnawing at the string.
From Mrs. Frisby and the Rats of NIMH by Robert C. O’Brien
NIMH
Rats of Nimh: Mr. Ages
Continuing my series of illustrations inspired by Mrs. Frisby and the Rats of Nimh!
Along one entire wall…stood the raw materials he had collected: roots, seeds, dried leaves, pods, strips of bark and shriveled mushrooms.
To this row he now added the contents of his sack…dark, veined green leaves that looked like mint.
“Pipsissewa,” said Mr. Ages. “Botanically, Chimaphila umbellata.”
Excerpted from Mrs Frisby and the Rats of Nimh, by Robert C. O’Brien
Mrs Frisby and the Rats of NIMH
Mrs. Frisby and the Rats of NIMH, and the movie based on it, The Secret of NIMH, are two of my favorite things from childhood. I’m extremely leery of the new CGI/live action movie they’re making based on the book. I personally can’t see it working on the same emotional level that the book and 2D animated movie did. There’s a certain expressiveness in the style of those Don Bluth animated films that suited it very well.
Now, if it was Pixar handling it rather than Paramount, I could easily believe they could pull it off and be true to the spirit of the original book.
Anyway, to get over my pre-emptive ill-will towards the new movie, I’m rereading the book and doing my own illustrations for it. I’m doing it in an unstructured way…just drawing whatever scenes strike me as needing to be drawn. Here’s the first:
“With her forepaws and sharp teeth she pulled off a part of the husk from the top ear of corn and folded it double to serve as a crude carrying bag. Then she pulled loose as many of the yellow kernals as she could easily lift, and putting them in the shuck-bag she hopped off briskly for home.”