In the movie He’s Just Not That into You, Drew Barrymore’s character laments that she has to go around “checking all these different portals, just to get rejected by seven different technologies.” These “different technologies” - e-mail, Twitter, Facebook, BlackBerries and iPhones, to name a few - have revolutionized not only the way we date but also how we gossip. Rumors can make their way around the world in seconds. It’s a ramped up, electronic version of “whisper down the lane.” It’s the grapevine about which Marvin Gaye croons.

The concept of the grapevine and how information gets skewed as it’s passed along are at the center of fine artist Alex Beard’s debut children’s book, The Jungle Grapevine. With stunning ink illustrations, Beard tells the humorous story of animals in the African savanna that engage in what amounts to an old-fashioned game of “telephone.” “It was a great way to tell a parable about innuendo, rumor, misunderstanding and, in this case, leading to innocent chaos but nonetheless chaos,” notes Beard. He says these elements are reflective of his native New York. Beard, the nephew of renown photographer Peter Beard, and the son of a magazine editor and author, grew up in the middle of NYC’s art world. Andy Warhol and Truman Capote were familiar guests in the Beard household. Beard now splits his time between Manhattan and New Orleans galleries, and you can almost feel the bold and colorful Big Easy come alive in the artwork of Jungle Grapevine and the accompanying board games and puzzles.

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Available at amazon.com.

POSTED IN: Books, UrbanBaby Picks