The Brandywine River Museum’s reputation for housing N.C. Wyeth’s works, along with Wyeth’s mentor, Howard Pyle, were enough to convince eight illustrators to contribute to a new exhibition there, “Rooted: Family and Nature in Contemporary Children’s Literature.”

Wyeth and Pyle are considered the “godfathers of illustration,” said Sandra Strickland, co-curator of the exhibit.

“Every artist who went to art school cut their teeth on the Wyeth tradition.”

The Chadds Ford museum’s children’s book illustrations exhibit includes more than 75 illustrations from the eight illustrators, writes Peter Crimmins for WHYY.

Strickland is co-curating the exhibition with associate curator Audrey Lewis.

The two worked for months finding books that best matched the exhibit’s universal themes of family and nature, presented from different cultural perspectives.

The exhibit features a variety of styles and cultural backgrounds, from urban Chinatown to the adventures of a suburban Latino father and son, to an Indigenous Asháninka girl in a Peruvian rain forest, to a Black mother and child spending a rainy day together.

Four of the eight illustrators have won the Caldecott Medal, the award for illustrated children’s books given by the American Library Association.

Find out more about this unique children’s book illustrations exhibit at the Brandywine River Museum at WHYY.