Art for cash sake/Aussie books

Art for cash sake is just what it is.  Art that I have made dough with.


This illustration was for a travel magazine on Australia.  It made me think of all the fabulous children's authors coming out of that continent.

Australian Markus Zusak wrote the amazing story The Book Thief.  It is narrated by death who tells the tale of the regular Christian Germans who were bullied into submission by the Nazis.  One girl survives this ordeal by stealing books for comfort.  She takes them from a graveyard, library and a smoldering book burning pile.  It is an crossover from adult and is quite an edgy YA.  Markus breaks every rule of writing and makes it work in this story.  Have a box of Kleenex near when reading this.