Lyne, Alison Davis

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Lyne, Alison Davis

Personal

Married Frank Lyne (a farmer and sculptor).

Addresses

Home—Adairville, KY. E-mail—[email protected].

Career

Illustrator.

Member

Society of Children's Book Writers and Illustrators (Mid-South chapter).

Illustrator

Alice Couvillon and Elizabeth Moore, retellers, Evangeline for Children (based on the poem by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow), Pelican Publishing (Gretna, LA), 2002.

Beverly Barras Vidrine, Easter Day Alphabet, Pelican Publishing (Gretna, LA), 2003.

Jennifer Holloway Lambe, Kudzu Chaos, Pelican Publishing (Gretna, LA), 2003.

Beverly Barras Vidrine, Halloween Alphabet, Pelican Publishing (Gretna, LA), 2004.

Sheila Hébert-Collins, Jacques et la canne à sucre: A Cajun Jack and the Beanstalk, Pelican Publishing (Gretna, LA), 2004.

Beverly Barras Vidrine, Thanksgiving Day Alphabet, Pelican Publishing (Gretna, LA), 2006.

Lynn Sheffield Simmons, Bo and the Roaring Pines, Pelican Publishing (Gretna, LA), 2008.

Sidelights

Illustrator Alison Davis Lyne works out of her home in rural Kentucky, where she lives on a farm with her husband, sculptor Frank Lyne. In addition to being a fine-

art painter, creating landscape studies and portraits of people and architecture, Lyne also works as a freelance illustrator, creating magazine covers and spot art. In 2002 she moved into children's-book illustration with Evangeline for Children, Alice Couvillon and Elizabeth Moore's retelling of Henry Wordsworth Longfellow's 1847 poem about the forcible migration of Acadian families from eastern Canada south to Louisiana during the mid-eighteenth century. The book, geared for children aged five to eight years old, is enhanced by Lyne's detailed paintings. "I had great fun doing research on the clothes, landscapes, and daily life in the mid-1750s when the story takes place," the illustrator noted on her home page. In a review of Evangeline for Children, School Library Journal contributor Sheilah Kosco wrote that Lyne's "bright and colorful" paintings "enhance the telling of this story" and deemed the picture book "an essential purchase for Louisiana libraries."

Other books featuring Lyne's richly toned acrylic paintings include Kudzu Chaos, a humorous story by Jennifer Holloway Lambe that describes the rampages of the invasive kudzu vine on a small southern town, and Jacques et la canne à sucre: A Cajun Jack and the Beanstalk, Sheila Hebért-Collins' regional take on a traditional story that includes a popular seafood recipe. Collaborating with Louisiana writer Beverly Barras Vidrine, Lyne has also created art for a series of holiday concept books: Easter Day Alphabet, Halloween Alphabet, and Thanksgiving Day Alphabet. Each of these alphabet books allowed Lyne to illustrate interesting historical facts about the individual holidays.

Lyne has always had a love of history, and through her art she tells visual stories of the past, in all its glorious color. In addition to her book illustration, shee has painted historical portraits of fourteen famous Kentucky women, and these now hang in a permanent display in the Kentucky State Capitol rotunda. In these pictures Lyne was able to tell, visually, a bit about each woman's life accomplishments through her detailed painting.

Biographical and Critical Sources

PERIODICALS

Booklist, June 1, 2002, Susan Dove Lempke, review of Evangeline for Children, p. 1721.

Kirkus Reviews, September 15, 2006, review of Thanksgiving Day Alphabet, p. 969.

School Library Journal, July, 2002, Sheilah Kosco, review of Evangeline for Children, p. 86; July, 2003, Jane Marino, review of Easter Day Alphabet, p. 119; December, 2004, Wendy Woodfill, review of Halloween Alphabet, p. 138; April, 2005, Judith Constantinides, review of Jacques et la canne à sucre: A Cajun Jack and the Beanstalk, p. 123; November, 2006, Mary Elam, review of Thanksgiving Day Alphabet, p. 126.