Oakland Tribune from Oakland, California • 75

f- I la Mama Dos! Allow, as In aU his books. Thicker Hard strives for meaaiag la the fusion of pictares and words. The children of Thacher Hurds imagination Caatiaaed hem prevhn page ily in San Francisco) is out this month. One of the most provocative' political books for Bay Area au-diences this season is sure to be Peter Collier and David Horow-. itis damning account of the 60s, Destructive Generation: Sec ond Thoughts About the Sixties." For the former Ramparts magazine editors turned Reagan Republicans, this book should be the apologia for their shift to the Right.

Among books on current political issues, John New house's history pf the arms race, War and Peace in the Nuclear Age," is just out in time to accompany a 13-part PBS soles based on it Former Stanford professor H. Bruce Franklin's investigation of the Star Wars defense plan is also out this month. Former Washington Post military correspondent George Wilson has written an account of the post-Vietnam army in Mud Soldiers: Inside the New American Army." Political columnist Edward J. Epstein traces the history i counter-intelligence since the beginning of the century in Deception: The Invisible War Between the KGB and the CIA." On the humor shelf Andy Rooney, Garrison Keillor and Wil- -liam Saf ire are back with collections of their usual fare. Sex, psychology, health and science Among the many ills that af- feet our psyches, information anxiety is the intriguing subject taken up by Richard Saul Wurman, creator of the superb Access guidebooks.

His Information Anxiety" is about the psychological cost of living in the age of expanded information, by an author who should know. An update on the sexual revolution of the '60s is offered in a- -national report on sexual mores, Burning Desires: Sex in America," by Bay Area journalists -Steve Chappie and David Talbot The big self-help book of the season may well be a guide to staying married, Husbands and Wives," by doctors Melvin Kinder and Connell Cowan, the authors of the phenomenally successful Smart Women, Foolish Choices." Another marriage manual with best-selling potential is Weight Sex and Marriage," by Richard Stuart a Weight Watchers executive, and Barbara Ja- cobsen, a psychiatrist. Their subject is the way a woman's weight problems (real or perceived) contribute to the power struggle within a troubled marriage. A more analytical approach to contemporary marriage is of-v Jered by UC-Berkeley sociologist Arlie Hochschild in The Second Shift, on how two-career marriages work. In the field Coatiaaed os next page a.

b. ft 5 i. -i. -T? M'. S- UXS? By Diana Ketcham Tto Mmm PIR BERKELEY artist and writer Thacher Hurd, making a living from childrens books is a family tradition.

Hurd is the son of a famous bus-band-and-wife team, the late artist Clement Hurd, who illustrated the classic bedtime story Goodnight Moon," and writer Edith Thacher Hurd. But for 39-year-old Thacher Hurd, a career with children's books was som thing he never thought of until he was well into his 20s. Trained as a painter at the California College of Arts and Crafts in Oakland, Hurd turned to illus-tration when he got tired of painting serious Vermeer-like oils. People always ask me if my parents taught' me how to make a childrens book, Hurd said in an interview at his pleasant home in Berkeley's Elmwood district. i 'I find the question funny.

In the first place, Clem and Posey werent the teaching sort. But more than that, creating a story that will appeal to children is something that cant be taught. It's a matter of having something to say. Hurd feels strongly that childrens books should have important content He is appalled by the boom in what he calls coffee table children's books. These are expensive books, illus-' trated by beautiful painting that have nothing to do with anything" In his own books, Mama Dont Allow," Axel the Freeway Cat or the latest that he has illustrated, Wheel Away, coming out in March, Hurd concentrates on achieving mean- Having sold his first book 10 years ago, Hurd said that the hardest part is still coming up with a concept that will bring together pictures and words.

In "Axel the Freeway Cat, it was the unusual association of cats with the freeway. In Pea Patch Jig, Hurd was inspired by the animals and garden at his familys home near Starksboro, where he was born. He returns there every summer with his mother, his wife, Olivia, and their two sons. When I visited Hurd's Berkeley studio, a converted garage behind his house, he was drawing from a tiny, heart-shaped booklet, the dummy for a Valentine's story that will be published a year from now. This was an idea that came to me all at once, almost like automatic writing, he said, turning the pages.

They showed a mouse who couldnt find a sweetheart because the vajjbtine he made was too big. The problem is resolved when he meets a lady with a pair of scissors. Together they make little valentines from the Mg one and give them to all their friends. The dummy ends with images of tiny hearts fluttering across the page! The dummy of the valentine story is an example of what Hurd shows pros-1 pective publishers. Executing the idea in text and finished drawings can take up to two years.

I would like to do three books a year, Hurd said. But the average is more like two. The books seem so simple, but thats what makes them difficult. It's like writing poetry. There are so few elements to work with, every one has to he just right.

-f-i Bf RtgiuU PttrmtM Tbe Tribum Of mice and valentines: Hurd draws ap dummy in Berkeley home. ing by fusing words and pictures. The essential part is the idea for the story, he said. There has to be an element of suspense or mystery to intrigue the child. The pictures should enhance that feeling, whatever it is.

Hurd recalled his own thrill as a child reading Robin Hood, illustrated by the legendary artist N.C. Wyeth. I just loved the adventure of the story, he said. Wyeths pictures made that excitement more complex. They added a dimension of mystery to what you were reading about the characters.

i fatMDdtt SundafiUanuary 29. 1989 6.