Partnering with a local nonprofit that promotes reading to children, three Hollins professors in 2017 transformed an unpublished work by a beloved children’s author and Hollins alumna into an interactive tool for parents and caregivers.
Now, ten original gouache paintings by acclaimed children’s illustrator Ruth Sanderson along with sketches and a storyboard for the book will be featured in the exhibition “Four Fur Feet: A Hollins Collaborative Early Literacy Project,” which will be on display at Hollins University’s Eleanor D. Wilson Museum, May 31 – September 2.
Written by Margaret Wise Brown ’32, author of such children’s classics as Goodnight Moon and The Runaway Bunny, the Four Fur Feet manuscript was discovered in the university archives and developed into an educational book by Associate Professor of Education Anna Baynum and Assistant Professor of Psychology Tiffany Pempek, co-directors of the Early Literacy Project at Hollins. Sanderson, who has illustrated over 80 children’s books and is co-director of the M.F.A. program in children’s book writing and illustrating, was asked by Baynum and Pempek to create pictures for the book.
Hollins and Turn the Page, a Roanoke-based organization whose mission is increasing awareness of the benefits of reading with children during the first three years of life, subsequently gave Carilion Roanoke Memorial Hospital 5,000 free copies of Four Fur Feet to be distributed to every mom who delivers a baby there.
“Four Fur Feet: A Hollins Collaborative Early Literacy Project” can be seen in the Wilson Museum’s Main Gallery. The museum will host an opening reception and book signing on Friday, June 22, at 7:30 p.m. in the Wetherill Visual Arts Center’s first floor lobby.
The Wilson Museum is open Tuesday – Sunday, noon – 5 p.m., and Thursdays, noon – 8 p.m. Admission is always free and open to the public.
