The Eric Carle Museum knows it's brand from the cute signage with Eric Carle Illustrations to the bathroom with Eric Carle tiles and tiny potties for littles with decorative, floral inspired seats (my male compatriot told me that in the men's room there were painted flies in the urinal). The company car is Carle inspired as is the lobby art, the children's art studio and projects juxtaposed against simple and elegant gallery spaces with a lobby that opens up on a grassy yard planted with apple trees. The whole place felt right--and with the treats in the galleries in the show--the morning clipped along quickly filled with color texture and line.

I was struck however, with the single composition that Carle uses for all of his books. The spreads are always crossovers of a single animal or creature on a white field. It is rare when he puts his living creatures in a context--with a horizon. And the books are a bit formulaic but dead on for teaching, reading and playing out into the world of children. This museum serves the illustration world with their shows and store chock a block filled with books, providing a networking center for the children's book illustrators and a bully pulpit to champion reading, children's literature and art.