Author stays true to granddad’s beloved children’s classic

Published 6:27 pm Monday, September 22, 2008

From the nibs of his ink pen to the spirit of his rhyme on the very first page, John Bemelmans Marciano has tried to stay true to a grandfather he never met in putting out the first all-new “Madeline” adventure in nearly 50 years.

Since 1939, generations have cherished the old house in Paris covered in vines and the 12 little girls in two straight lines, including the smallest one with a can-do streak and a penchant for calamity.

But why tamper with a character so endearing? Early reviews have been mixed.

“Some people are never going to like it,” Marciano, 38, said of stepping into the ink-splattered shoes of his grandfather Ludwig Bemelmans.

“I certainly have ambivalent feelings, to some extent, about it,” he said. “The one thing, though, is that people love the books. My doing new books doesn’t in any way detract from the original five that my grandfather did.”

To prepare to write the book, Marciano meticulously practiced Ludwig’s line techniques, even tracking down which pen nibs he preferred.

He blew up drawings from some of Ludwig’s originals and sketched them in pencil, then placed clear velum on top and worked in pen and ink over and over again.

“I went over his lines less for the style than actually wanting to learn what his literal strokes were,” he said. “How long they were. I was almost meditating over what he did.

“When I was ready to actually do the book I threw all that stuff away and just kind of went with it.”

It was in college, Marciano said, that he “realized what it was all about” and sought out everything the colorful Ludwig had ever written, including more than 40 books for adults and children, along with short fiction and drawings for Vogue, The New Yorker and other top magazines.

Grandpa Ludwig died in 1962, eight years before Marciano was born.

But the grandson had a warm, close relationship with his grandmother — the original Madeleine.

Leanne Italie, Associated Press