The Old Man Mad about Drawing:
A Tale of Hokusai

written & illustrated by François Place,
translated by William Rodarmor
David R. Godine, Publisher

David Godine came back from the Frankfurt International Book Fair with a copy of the French edition of this wonderful book. He’d published Place’s The Last Giants with great success some years before and hoped this one would do equally well in the U.S. I read it in one sitting and immediately started working to secure the rights and sent it along to translator William Rodarmor. The Gallimard Jeunesse edition seemed pretty clunky – wrong size, ugly type, dull layout – lots of room for improvement. Happily, their files included a two large illustrations and a handful of spots that for some reason hadn’t made it into the French edition, so I had the chance to make our edition something very special indeed.

Hardcover with jacket, 7.5 × 10"