A Special Visit to Burgundy

Wife and husband duo, Lesa Cline-Ransome and James Ransome, shared their personal and professional lives with students last week. A captivating slideshow accompanied their descriptions of how they met in college, the professional pursuits of their four young adult children, and how they go about creating and illustrating books. Students oooh’ed and aaaah’ed over the images of the illustrator’s studio and they were impressed by his murals in various public libraries and museums. Lesa spoke about her experience growing up and wishing she could read biographies about people who better reflected her experiences. This inspired her to write picture book biographies about diverse people that may not be as well-known as they should be. 

The room of more than 100 children was absolutely silent as Lesa read aloud from her book, “Overground Railroad.” Her words told the story of an African American family traveling by train from the South to the North on a train in the first half of the 20th century during the Great Migration. The somber, poetic story was followed by an exciting drawing lesson led by James; student-drawn numbers were transformed into recognizable images in a matter of seconds! We hope to have this pair back at Burgundy in the future for an extended visit to include writer and artist workshops.⁠

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