‘What ROSA Brought’: Endpapers
A behind-the-scenes look into the art-making process for ‘What Rosa Brought’
The endpapers of a picture book are the first thing a reader sees when opening the book and the last thing before closing it. (They’re the pages of paper that are glued down to the cover board and connect to the book’s pages.)
Depending on the printing process, the endpapers might be a solid piece of colored paper or they might have a design printed on them. In either case, they introduce the vibe of the book and can also be a place to begin and end the story. With ‘What Rosa Brought’, I used them as a chance to set up the story’s environment, and end on a note that feels essential to the arc of the story.
When we open the book to the first endpaper, we see the family’s belongings displayed in their home. One of the central themes in ‘ROSA’ concerns belonging – both as people in a society, and actual physical belongings. The story begins with a Jewish family living happily in their home in the city of Vienna (in 1938-9), and follows them as the Nazi take-over forces them to flee (and the road blocks they encounter while trying to do so), and immigrate to the U.S. They lose their “belonging” in the society, and navigate what belongings they will be able to take with them.
I wanted all of the items in the book to show real belongings that Rosa’s family, and other victims of the Holocaust, lost or saved. Author Jacob Sager Weinstein (Rosa’s son) shared family photos of many items that were packed in their trunk and brought to America (including a trunk built by Rosa’s father). I filled in with other items that I found by looking through photo archives of the U.S. Holocaust Museum and the Jewish Museum Vienna.
As the book progresses, Rosa’s family slowly lose their livelihood. Her father begins building trunks to sell to neighbors fleeing the country. We see in the background belongings disappearing from the wall, as we imagine them packing them up or selling them off, until at the end there are only ghosts of the items silhouetted on the wall (go get the book to see that scene!).
On the back endpapers their belongings are packed neatly in the trunk, which will land with them in the new country they’re headed to, along with their hopes of a new life–free of persecution–and of belonging.
Thanks for reading!
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