#olivia duchess

[americangirlstar]

The beginning journal pages for the World By Us girls and opening illustrations.

Makena's book was illustrated by Courtney Lovett Evette's book was illustrated by Olivia Duchess Maritza's book was illustrated by Caroline Garcia and Flavia Conley

[blackchildrensbooksandauthors]

Daddy-Daughter Day

Pierce Freelon

Olivia Duchess

Little, Brown BYR (2022)

[americangirlstar]

World By Us illustrations from American Girl's Why World By Us Matters page. Maybe they could read their own page once in a while amirite

Makena's book was illustrated by Courtney Lovett Evette's book was illustrated by Olivia Duchess Maritza's book was illustrated by Caroline Garcia and Flavia Conley

[americangirlstar]

Ok, so I could be completely wrong on this, but I think I may have found a prototype Evette design?

Evette’s book, The River and Me, was illustrated by Olivia Duchess, who recently got a new site showing off her work. The other day I was going through the illustrator websites of all the WBU girls to see if they’d posted good quality illustrations yet (as Kira’s and Joss’s illustrators recently did). While Olivia is the only one who seems to have posted a few, I did find something else interesting!

She has a page of illustrations that look like this; as far as I can tell, there isn’t a label or caption detailing what book this is for, except the site link is "daisy," and the file names when I saved the images were, repectively, “daisyoliviaduchess", "4-panel-illustration1" and "4-panel-illustration22."

The second image, "4-panel-illustration1", looks awfully similar to this finished illustration for Evette, with the grandmother in the exact same position, just different clothing.

I haven't been able to find anything online for a book about a "Daisy" that Olivia Duchess illustrated or worked on; do we think these were prototype designs for Evette and Bud?

[americangirlstar]

Three illustrations from Evette: The River and Me (2021) have been released by Olivia Duchess! [link]

[americangirlstar]

Evette Peeters News

americangirldollnews believes she’s found some news about the first World By Us book- and it’s actually amazing! 

The book was spotted on the Library of Congress catalog, and will be titled Evette: The River and Me, to be released 2021. The author is listed as Sharon Dennis Wyeth with illustrations by Olivia Duchess.

So, did some googling- Sharon Dennis Wyeth has an official site here, where she describes herself as an author, poet, and memoirist. She also is African-American, born and raised in Washington DC. As she says herself, her books tend to include themes of:

literacy, racial harmony, identity, poverty, contemporary families, bullying, resilience, African American history, American history, the search for beauty and the strength found in community.

My characters are ordinary children who demonstrate resilience in the face of adversity. I believe in cultivating optimism. I believe in the positive power of story.

Olivia Duchess, meanwhile, is a freelance illustrator, with her site here and instagram here. She’s done work for several children’s books as well as for the Disney company. Like Wyeth, Duchess is black. As she said for her portrait “My Dream,” (pictured below the caption)

I absolutely love going to exhibitions centred around 19th Century paintings. I'm a black girl so I won't deny that I don't see people who resemble me in those paintings but I am deeply inspired by the heavily detailed artwork from this century. So this piece is an homage to 19thC portraiture with the subject being someone who looks like me. It’s also a study of technique. And an homage to cats.

While the author/illustrator’s ethnicity doesn’t always reflect the girl they’re writing for- as just one example, Laurence Yep is Chinese and wrote for Mia and Isabelle, two white girls- it is noteworthy that these women are both black and have an interest in representing the African-American identity. 

Assuming this leak is true? It’s more likely than not that Evette Peeters will be black! This is exciting for multiple reasons, one of which being that another member of the World By Us line, Makena Williams, has a Kikuyu name. Meaning that we may get two black dolls for the initial lineup!