Illustration by Jill Pinkwater from BEAUTIFUL YETTA: THE YIDDISH CHICKEN

Monsters and Miracles investigates the significant contributions that Jewish art and storytelling have made to children’s literature, tracing the development of the Jewish picture book from its early cultural roots to its contemporary innovations. The works represent an array of artistic media, including paintings, drawings, computer-generated images, paper cuts, collages, as well as lavishly illustrated Hebrew manuscripts. While texts are mainly in English, there are also works in Hebrew, Yiddish, and Portuguese.

This ambitious exhibition explores the evolution of Jewish picture books from illuminated manuscripts, alef-bets and Passover Haggadot to stories that consider monsters [golems, dybbuks, and wild things], life in the shtetl, and the role of migration in Jewish life. Curated by Ilan Stavans, Lewis-Sebring Professor of Latin American and Latino Culture at Amherst College, and independent scholar, Neal Sokol, the exhibition comprises a “who’s who” of picture-book artists.

On view at the Yiddish Book Center and The Carle until January 23, 2011.