CBIG - Children's Book Illustrators Group

I too chose The Old Curiosity Shop , since I like the idea of old curiosities. The first image shows 14-year-old Little Nell in the center, with her grandfather leading the way through the shop where the two live. The man in back has just helped Nell find her way home.  Nell and her grandfather are forced to leave their home because he has lost all their money gambling. Nell goes to work for a traveling wax-works show. Image 2 shows her nervously sharing a room with the wax-works.  The last image shows the evil Quilp horrifying his wife (in back) and mother-in-law as he gobbles down breakfast in a most uncivilized manner, bending the silver and even eating shrimp and eggs with their shells on. You can see more of my work at  illustracious.blogspot.com   and   doodlesoop.com .

I  have a page of sketches from 7th grade of characters from Dickens' A Tale of Two Cities .  I show it as part of my school visit presentation.  Our literature text book had no pictures.  My illustration-deprived classmates were excited by my drawings of Madame De Farge and others in the story. That reaction was one of my motivators to become an illustrator.   I googled "underrated Dickens novels".   The Old Curiosity Shop is an early novel, written serially.  Dickens' early characters were black and white, not as nuanced as in his later books.  It's the story of Nell, on the edge of maturity, whose grandfather is a gambling addict.  Nell gets Grandfather out of town to flee the clutches of the evil money lender Daniel Quilp.  Nell is the angel of the story. I've suggested a halo with her bonnet.   Daniel Quilp, who has no redeeming qualities, appears in his wharf shack surrounded by smoke from a faulty chimne...