This Land is Your Land as realized by Kathy Jakobsen -- A wonderful children's book for all ages revisited

15 years ago this month the second edition of a truly beautiful and moving illustrated book dedicated to Woody Guthrie's great classic, This Land is Your Land, was released to celebrate what would have been Guthrie's 90th year. It came with a CD that had 9 of Guthrie's best known songs.


While technically a children's book, this award-winning adaptation will appeal to Guthrie fans and dreamers of all ages.

The book comes with an introduction by Guthrie's daughter Nora, a tribute written by Pete Seeger, and a brief outline of Guthrie's life. But the star is the song itself magnificently brought to the page by the simply stunning paintings of Kathy Jakobsen.

Jakobsen was given access to the Guthrie archives and used them to great effect as you can read in Nora's "note".

Jakobsen's art is an almost dreamlike evocation of the song's meaning and love of an America that could have been, that maybe could be, but that never really was. Of a hope and possibility not realized.

The paintings stretch from coast-to-coast ( as does the song ) and many of them are not simply richly detailed but also have various panels that try to capture the vastness and diversity that lies "From California to the New York island, From the redwood forest to the Gulf Stream waters".  There are often little quotes at the corners.

Here are just a few examples:

It contains the original "no trespassing" (or sometimes sung as "private property") lyrics that are often left out.

The book pays tribute to some of the many artists who have covered Guthrie's songs and tried to keep his vision alive:

But in perhaps the book's most powerful moment Jakobsen juxtaposes an imagery of the United States as it has all too often been, despite its great promise and wealth, with a representation of an America of community, co-operation, healing and progress.

These paintings and this juxtaposition continues to move me often to tears despite many years of having read this book to my children (as well as sometimes simply to myself) as they grew.

You can order copies of this specific edition off of sites like Amazon or Ebay and can order a deluxe 10th anniversary edition of this wonderful book from woodyguthrie.org

And remember, wherever you live in whatever country whose borders have been arbitrarily imposed upon the planet, this land is your land, this land was made for you and me.




See also: The Little Clay Hut -- A Soviet Adaptation of a Russian Children's Tale by Alexei Tolstoi

See also: Mergen and His Friends: A Nanai Folk Tale - A Vintage Soviet Children's Fable