A Place to Feel at Home

Dear Friend, 

At The Carle Honors this September, Artist honoree Bryan Collier shared with a rapt audience that The Eric Carle Museum of Picture Book Art, and the people who make up our community, make him feel at home. 

We hear that word often: Home. 

• For a child, The Carle can be a home where the pictures on the walls awaken an idea: I could make something like that. 
• For a family, we can be a home to slow down in, explore together, and discover a story they will remember long after they leave. 
• For an adult, we can create opportunities to stay creative, curious, and connected. 
• For an educator, we can offer a new way to help a child look closely, ask questions, and find their own voice. 
• For an artist, The Carle can be a home where the work of creating illustrations for picture books is celebrated as an art form. 

We think of The Carle like this, too–not simply as a home for picture book art, but as a place where people can feel welcomed, inspired, challenged, and seen. And this home is a beacon for all of us, even when we are far away. 

Picture books can also do something else that feels especially important today: they help us encounter lives beyond our own. They introduce children to unfamiliar people and cultures. They help them, and us, recognize ourselves in someone else’s story. They remind us that curiosity, empathy, and imagination can build bridges between people. And this gives us hope for a bright, shared future. 

Recently, one of our members put it simply: 

“Seeing the kids in the art studio gives me hope for the future.” 

Because what happens in the art studio and throughout The Carle is about more than making art or enjoying books. It is about giving everyone the freedom to imagine, create, question, and see possibility in themselves and in the world around them. 

That matters. Now more than ever.   

Picture book art and picture books help us see ourselves, understand one another, and imagine a larger world. 

Your support makes these experiences possible. 

This holiday season, will you help make that sense of belonging, discovery, and possibility available to even more people? Together, we can ensure that this extraordinary art form and everything it can awaken in children, adults, families, educators, and artists serves as their inspiring home base for generations to come.   

With gratitude,  

Jennifer Schantz 

Executive Director 

P.S. Remember there are many ways to contribute to The Carle. You can donate online, make a gift of stock, use a Donor Advised Fund, or consider adding the Museum as a beneficiary of a planned gift. This year, your charitable gift may qualify for a federal tax deduction even if you don’t itemize.

For more information or to discuss your thoughts around giving, please reach out to our Director of Development, Rebecca Miller Goggins, at rebeccag@carlemuseum.org, or to me at jennifers@carlemuseum.org.