Spanning from the middle of April to the end of May 1991, the eighth Schoolbook is one of the lengthier books. Time and storage conditions have not been kind to the document with many pages disfigured beyond repair and the cover only preserved by the blanket of adhesive tape provided by our precocious relater. The Schoolbook coincides with the release of the frail chronicler for the Easter holiday and also the initiation of the most munificent of all Jelish documents, the Private Sketchbook.
A seditious streak in the young artist grows noticeable with the affixing of a throng of magazine clippings, each home to a depiction of the pop singer Madonna, to the integument of the document. These ribald decorations are extended into the initial pages of the Schoolbook, a trio of Extraneous Drawings (ED.72-74) as well as the bindings of the final School Sketchbook (SSB.9) and the Private Sketchbook. In the eighth Schoolbook this results in an obscure conflation of cultural and classical tropes with the Madonna adorning the cover proximal to the Madonna of the pages twenty-six and seven.
More than likely in response to the act of barbarism from Demaio in the previous document (unfortunately more of the same found on many leaves of this book), all distinctions between channels of expression are collapsed from the eighth School Sketchbook onwards. Facing the imminent arrival of her younger brother, Stuart, and the commencement of a new school project, 'Beginnings', the adolescent artisan's attention slips from her deceased father to her as yet unborn brother. In retrospect, one traces a visual connection: the wires and machines apparent in Vanessa's pregnancy scans evidently all too familiar for the emotionally weary youngster.
The arrival of the youngest Jelish is dramatically marked on the aforementioned double spread of page twenty-six (on a clipped in sheet surrendered by the Private Sketchbook). Unfortunately each periphery wing of this extended drawing has been stolen by appalling storage conditions. This likeness is followed by a multitude of pages that replicate renderings manifest in both the Private Sketchbook and Extraneous Drawings. Indeed the triad of conduits consents these neonatal portrayals to register a peculiar concertina effect; an image is executed in the Private Sketchbook, then the School Sketchbook, and finally as a separate Extraneous Drawing.