Abstract
In 1986 the celebrated illustrator Trina Schart Hyman delivered a plenary address at the thirteenth annual conference of the Children's Literature Association. Instead of a formal presentation, Hyman gave her audience an insider's look at the picture book she had just completed, The Water of Life, with slides displaying her illustrations. The text was a straightforward adaptation by Barbara Rogasky of the German folktale in which a prince seeks for the Water of Life and finds a princess in an enchanted castle; the illustrations, on the other hand, like those in Hyman's SnowWhite (1974), The Sleeping Beauty (1977), and Saint George and the Dragon (1984), expressed an interpretation very much her own. Her princess, for example, was depicted as, in Hyman's words, "an equal opportunity employer," with illustrations showing "a black guy and a woman as the heads of her guards" (10). One of the enchanted princes in another illustration was also black. Most remarkable, however, was the beautiful, dark-haired princess herself, first seen as the hero discovers her in her room, studying books and maps. "Now I'll have you know that this is a Jewish princess," Hyman announced. 1