New books for fall from CCA authors

From children’s titles exploring identity to comics on the subject of a certain controversial author to a closer examination of the rock-and-roll psychedelic visual style, browse new books to add to your library by CCA faculty, alumni, and students.

Art and Commentary

Cover art with an illustrated giant J.K. Rowling and three small children reaching for her book.

J.K. Rowling and the Ungrateful Fans, by Sonya Saturday (MFA Comics 2020).

J.K. Rowling and the Ungrateful Fans

From the mind of Sonya Saturday (MFA Comics 2020), J.K. Rowling and the Ungrateful Fans pokes fun at the relationship between the titular author and longtime Harry Potter fans who object to Rowling’s transphobic statements. The book depicts the attitudes of Rowling’s readers at different stages of their lives. The story is delineated with Saturday’s crisp and expressive artwork, and her inimitable acerbic sense of humor.

Cover art with a collage of cutouts of busts from classical and antiquity.

Is now the time for joyous rage? from CCA Wattis Institute for Contemporary Arts and Sternberg Press, 2023.

Is now the time for joyous rage?

The fourth book in the annual A Series of Open Questions published by CCA Wattis Institute for Contemporary Arts and Sternberg Press, this issue is informed by themes found in the work of Lorraine O’Grady, including diaspora, Black female subjectivity, racial hybridity, translation, intersectional feminism, institutional critique, Black representation in the art world, archives, music, Conceptualism, and performance art.

Humanities and Sciences

Cover art with a mash-up of different psychedelic visual styles converging on a split human portrait and skull.

Poster Child: The Psychedelic Art & Technicolor Life of David Edward Byrd, by David Edward Byrd and Robert von Goeben, 2023.

Poster Child: The Psychedelic Art & Technicolor Life of David Edward Byrd

This stunning retrospective by Graphic Design faculty Robert von Goeben goes behind the art and stories of graphic artist David Edward Byrd, one of rock and roll’s most influential artists. Byrd pioneered rock and roll’s signature visual style in the posters, concerts, and album art he created for Jimi Hendrix, the Who, Lou Reed, Janis Joplin, the Grateful Dead, the 1969 Woodstock Festival, and KISS, among many others.

Book cover art featuring blue-lined architectural layouts of communal living spaces amid a green background.

The Shape of Utopia: The Architecture of Radical Reform in Nineteenth-Century America, by Irene Cheng, 2023.

The Shape of Utopia: The Architecture of Radical Reform in Nineteenth-Century America

The Shape of Utopia documents a pivotal moment in American history when ordinary people ardently believed in the potential to reshape society. Highlighting the inherent political capacity of architecture, Chair of Graduate Architecture Irene Cheng, showcases how visionary utopian planners in the mid-nineteenth century used their blueprints as persuasive visual rhetoric that could mobilize others to share in their aspirations for a better world.

Children’s Books

A colorful illustration of a white car driving through palm trees with a city and ocean in the background.

Yenebi’s Drive to School, by Sendy Santamaria (BFA Illustration 2018).

Yenebi’s Drive to School

In a winning voice and a bright palette, author-illustrator Sendy Santamaria (BFA Illustration 2018) tells the story of one girl's commute across international borders—a commute Sendy herself made growing up as an American citizen living in Mexico. Yenebi's Drive to School takes readers on a trip that many will recognize as very similar to their own. Edición en español: El viaje de Yenebi a la escuela.

Book cover art illustration depicting a young girl standing on an egg with a reddish-orange dragon in the background.

Kai’s Tea Eggs, by Karina Zhou (BFA Animation program).

Kai’s Tea Eggs

An endearing and beautifully illustrated children's book by Karina Zhou (BFA Animation program) about learning to embrace our heritage and celebrate what makes us unique. Kai's Tea Eggs is a charming story for anyone who, like Kai, has felt the frustration of trying to fit in before finally learning to appreciate who they are.

Watch Karina Zhou read her book on CBC Kids Book Club.

Published on October 27, 2023