Hush-A-Bye-Baby

Comforting or Ominous? - Wait and See

In this 1986 illustration, the elements change. The colors used are brighter-bright red-orange leaves fill the trees, soft blues (shadow) and yellows (sunlight) have an uplifting appearance, and the cradle itself is a flat green and etched with a heart in the back panel. Also very different is that the cradle is not falling at all but safely resting atop the tree in its soft bed of leaves. The reader is unable to see the baby's face, only indications of a blanket. The ominous feeling comes from the scattering a several falling leaves from the treetops and even out of the frame of the picture, perhaps foreshadowing the cradle's fate. In addition, the bare, outstretched branches-visible below the mass of red leaves-resemble bony, hungry fingers, patiently awaiting the time when the buffer of leaves is gone. The red of the leaves could also be interpreted as the baby's blood to flow. Again, however, in this illustration is the indication that the baby may survive the fall-to-come. On the very bottom of the page a treetop apparently full of lush, green leaves. Will the baby be saved in the softness below? This could very well be a message from a parent to a child: Be good, don't cry, and all will be well in the morning if Mommy could only get some sleep. These rhymes often contained such frightening messages to children, and perhaps this illustration best indicates that combination of fear and comfort. The soft rhymes of "Hush-a-bye Baby" act as the bright, warm colors do in this illustration. The meaning is in the violence of the words and, as in this illustration, the foreshadowing based upon the positioning of the cradle and the action of the leaves.