Modernism for kids

Leonard Weisgard illustrated about two dozen children’s books by his friend Margaret Wise Brown, though not her best-loved, “Goodnight Moon.’’ Now, to mark the centennial of Weisgard’s birth, the Eric Carle Museum of Picture Book Art in Amherst has created an exhibit of his work, including 20 paintings that have been restored.

“Magician of the Modern: The Art of Leonard Weisgard,’’ on view from March 8 to June 5, shows how the artist brought modernism to children’s book illustration. It draws on the contents of Weisgard’s home in Denmark and 13 steamer trunks of materials that his children inherited when he died in 2000 at the age of 83. Weisgard won the Caldecott Medal for his artwork on the 1947 children’s book “The Little Island’’ (Bantam), which Brown wrote under the pseudonym Golden MacDonald. Weisgard may have taken inspiration from the Maine island of Vinalhaven, where Brown owned a cottage.

Growing up gonzo

The hard-drinking gonzo journalist Hunter S. Thompson, who shot himself to death in 2005 at the age of 67, was an erratic father, to put it mildly. His only child, Juan F. Thompson, found himself woefully unprepared when he left his home outside Aspen, Colo., to attend Concord Academy. “I had no training in manners or socializing,’’ Juan writes in his memoir “Stories I Tell Myself: Growing Up with Hunter S. Thompson’’ (Knopf). “I was truly a stranger in a strange land.’’

Lonely and homesick, he returned to Colorado before the end of the first term. Three years later Juan returned to the East Coast to attend Tufts University. He didn’t fit in there either. “These people would rather be at Harvard,’’ Juan wrote in a letter to his father. “These people will be running the country. Not me.’’ The next year Juan transferred to the University of Colorado, graduating with a degree in literature in 1988. He’s now married, has a son, and works in IT. Completing his memoir, he writes, helped him come to terms with the relationship he had with his dad.

Exploring Icelandic fiction

Iceland is one of the most literate countries in the world. Books by the nation’s Nobel Prize winner Halldór Laxness are sold in gas stations, and public benches have barcodes so sitters can listen to a story on their smartphones, according to a BBC report. Crime fiction is particularly popular, and it can be an entertaining way to learn about the nation. Novels by Arnaldur Indriðason and Yrsa Sigurðardóttir are good places to begin.

In his fiction, Indriðason has explored the challenges Iceland’s genetically homogenous population poses for DNA testing and Sigurðardóttir, for her part, has drawn on the disastrous effects of a volcanic eruption in 1973. Icelandic author Eliza Reid, co-founder of the Iceland Writers Retreat, will talk about Laxness, Indriðason, Sigurðardóttir, and other writers from her country at 1 p.m. Saturday at Barnes & Noble in the Prudential Center. It’s part of the Taste of Iceland celebration in Boston Friday through Monday.

Coming out

¦ “Prodigals: Stories’’ by Greg Jackson (Farrar, Straus and Giroux)

¦ “Locally Laid: How We Built a Plucky, Industry-Changing Egg Farm — from Scratch’’ (Avery) by Lucie B. Amundsen

¦ “Mrs. Houdini’’ by Victoria Kelly (Atria)

Pick of the Week

William Carl of Wellesley Books in Wellesley recommends “The Arrangement’’ by Ashley Warlick (Viking): “Ostensibly the story of M.F.K. Fisher and the years when she honed her skills as America’s first food essayist, this sensual novel is actually a story about the fragility of relationships. As Fisher grows in renown, her marriage crumbles, and she boldly takes her husband’s best friend as a lover.’’

Jan Gardner can be reached at JanLGardner@yahoo.com.