Local author writes and illustrates reader for babies of the wealthiest Americans

By Wiley Wood

In these years of a Democratic presidency, with tax breaks for the wealthiest once more under threat and the Occupy Wall Street movement catching fire in every city, the privileged are having a rough time of it.

Thank heaven for Rosemary Gill, who bravely stems the tide of public sentiment in her new book, an ABC for baby one-percenters. Here, the offspring of the unimaginably wealthy can find the alphabet’s letters linked to objects in their world: A is for Apple.com, of course, illustrated by two well-scrubbed cherubs happily pecking away at their laptop computers. And E is for Early Admission, an important rite of passage in the life of a privileged toddler.

Asked how she came by her compassion for the overly moneyed, Gill explained that her course had not been a straight one. A self-taught artist, she has held a stand at the Norfolk farmer’s market for the past several years, where she sells her cards, paintings, and ceramics bearing the distinctive Haystack logo. Last July, she mounted a show at the Norfolk Library. But when, at the start of winter, the first glimmers of her present project came to her, Gill was actually planning to benefit the one percent by supplying her labor at a modest rate to any of several large retail outlets in the area. When her offer was spurned, she changed her tactics but not her resolve, and the present book is the result.

The drawings were produced at the rate of one a day in Gill’s home studio. The process of inserting them into Amazon’s layout software took a further two months. The slender paperback, “ABC’s of the Baby 1%”, can easily be slipped into a diaper bag or the carrying pocket of a MacLaren stroller, and is available online through Amazon.com or directly through the author. A book signing will be held at Aija, at 3 Station Place in downtown Norfolk, from 4 to 7 p.m. on Saturday, April 7.

Asked how she came by her calling, Gill chuckles and says: “You have to do what you love, otherwise life is too depressing.”