This Day in Children’s Book History: September 16th

🎂 1898 – Born: HA Rey (original name Hans Augusto Rey)

Mar­grethe Rey (1898–1977), a renowned Ger­man-Amer­i­can chil­dren’s pic­ture book author, illus­tra­tor, and pop­u­lar sci­ence schol­ar spe­cial­iz­ing in astron­o­my. On the eve of World War II, he and his wife, Mar­gret Rey, fled Paris by bicy­cle, car­ry­ing their draw­ings, even­tu­al­ly arriv­ing in the Unit­ed States. His art style is char­ac­ter­ized by bright, pure blocks of col­or, humor­ous and flow­ing pen lines, and a pre­cise, lev­el under­stand­ing of chil­dren’s psy­chol­o­gy.

• Rep­re­sen­ta­tive works and con­tent passed down through gen­er­a­tions:
• Curi­ous George series（Curi­ous George (The series, pub­lished in 1941, co-authored with Mar­garet Ray) — includ­ed in “1001 Chil­dren’s Books,” a mile­stone in ear­ly child­hood edu­ca­tion that has cap­ti­vat­ed the world for over eighty years. The sto­ries revolve around George, a lit­tle mon­key full of curios­i­ty about every­thing new in the world, and the “man in the yel­low hat” who pro­vides him with tol­er­ance and guid­ance. George’s curios­i­ty often leads him to tin­ker with every­day objects like tele­phones, bal­loons, and paint, caus­ing a series of hilar­i­ous mishaps, which he always man­ages to resolve with his wit and kind­ness. The work per­fect­ly echoes the nat­ur­al instinct of young chil­dren to learn about the world through explo­ration and tri­al and error.
• A time­less clas­sic of pop­u­lar sci­ence in astron­o­my: The Mys­tery of the Stars (The Stars: A New Way to See Them(1952) and “The Con­stel­la­tions, Let’s Dis­cov­er Them Togeth­er” (Find the Con­stel­la­tions(1954) — Ray broke away from the obscure and dif­fi­cult-to-under­stand tra­di­tion­al clas­si­cal star charts of the past hun­dreds of years. He was the first to use sim­ple and intu­itive geo­met­ric lines to direct­ly con­nect stars into vivid human and ani­mal shapes, which com­plete­ly rev­o­lu­tion­ized the mod­ern ama­teur astro­nom­i­cal obser­va­tion and chil­dren’s star sky cog­ni­tion sys­tem.

| Birth | HA Rey | HA Rey (Wikipedia) / Douban Peo­ple |

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🎂 Born 1948: Julia Donaldson

A renowned British chil­dren’s author, poet, and play­wright (1948). She wrote songs for chil­dren’s tele­vi­sion pro­grams for many years and was pro­fi­cient in the use of cycli­cal rhythms, par­al­lelism, and ono­matopoeia in folk songs. She served as Chil­dren’s Lau­re­ate from 2011 to 2013.

• Rep­re­sen­ta­tive works and con­tent passed down through gen­er­a­tions:
• The Gruffa­lo (The Gruffa­lo(Illus­trat­ed by Axel Schef­fler, 1999) — Select­ed for “1001 Chil­dren’s Books” and win­ner of the Smar­ties Book Award: a land­mark in mod­ern pic­ture book nar­ra­tive rhythm. A clever lit­tle mouse wan­ders deep in the for­est and encoun­ters a fox, an owl, and a snake, all want­i­ng to eat it. The lit­tle mouse con­jures up a giant beast with fangs, claws, a black tongue, and a love for predators—the Gruffalo—and suc­cess­ful­ly scares away its preda­tors. How­ev­er, it then encoun­ters a real Gruffa­lo that looks exact­ly like it! The lit­tle mouse remains calm and, with the Gruffa­lo in tow, leads it back into the for­est, using the preda­tors’ fear to its advan­tage and scare away the giant beast. The book is fast-paced and full of humor.
• His rep­re­sen­ta­tive works also include the best­selling clas­sic *Sit­ting in a Row of Witch­es*.Room on the Broom), explor­ing shar­ing and gen­eros­i­ty in “The Most Beau­ti­ful Giant in Town” (The Smartest Giant in Town), and the pre­his­toric-themed “Lit­tle Wild Man” (Cave Baby).

| Birth | Julia Don­ald­son | Julia Don­ald­son (Wikipedia) / Douban Peo­ple |

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🎂 1897 – Born: Thomas Handforth

A renowned Amer­i­can print­mak­er, etch­ing artist, and pic­ture book cre­ator (1897–1948). He trav­eled to North Africa and South­east Asia, and lived in Bei­jing, Chi­na for sev­er­al years, deeply observ­ing the life and tra­di­tion­al cus­toms of old Bei­jing’s hutongs. He was skilled at using high­ly expres­sive lith­o­graph lines to show­case the beau­ty of East­ern folk cus­toms.

• Top Award and Rep­re­sen­ta­tive Works:
• Beau­ti­ful New Year (Mei Li(1938) — Award­ed The sec­ond Calde­cott Medal, award­ed in 1939.A time­less clas­sic of Chi­nese-themed pic­ture books. On New Year’s Eve, a lit­tle girl named “Meili” from a north­ern vil­lage, car­ry­ing three cop­per coins and three lucky toys, sneaks into Bei­jing with her broth­er to vis­it the Spring Fes­ti­val tem­ple fair. In the city, she watch­es lion dances, eats can­died hawthorns, walks on stilts, and skates on an ice skat­ing rink. Before dark, she rush­es home to help her fam­i­ly wor­ship the Kitchen God and make dumplings to wel­come the New Year. Hand­ford’s exquis­ite and grand two-col­or lith­o­graphs vivid­ly depict the live­ly and fes­tive atmos­phere of the tra­di­tion­al Chi­nese Spring Fes­ti­val in the 1930s, cap­tur­ing the charm of the hutongs and bustling streets.

| Birth | Thomas Hand­forth | Thomas Hand­forth (Wikipedia) |

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🎂 Born 1965: Martin Baltscheit

A renowned Ger­man chil­dren’s pic­ture book author, illus­tra­tor, play­wright, and voice actor (1965). His works span philo­soph­i­cal themes, absurd fables, and social satire, and he excels at using extreme­ly humor­ous and absurd sit­u­a­tions to delve into the deep­est emo­tions and real­is­tic issues in chil­dren’s lives.

• Top Award and Rep­re­sen­ta­tive Works:
• The Sto­ry of the Fox Who Lost His Mem­o­ry (Die Geschichte vom Fuchs, der den Ver­stand ver­lor(2010) — Award­ed 2011 Ger­man Youth Lit­er­a­ture Prize (DJLP) Pic­ture Book AwardA heart­warm­ing alle­go­ry con­fronting Alzheimer’s dis­ease (demen­tia) and aging. The fox was once the most intel­li­gent and agile hunter in the for­est, pos­sess­ing a mas­tery of all sur­vival skills; how­ev­er, as it grew old, it began to for­get its own name, its hunt­ing meth­ods, and even that it was a fox. The young fox­es no longer idol­ized it, but instead gath­ered around it, car­ing for it and find­ing food for it. The entire book poet­i­cal­ly and sub­tly depicts the cycle of life and inter­gen­er­a­tional inclu­sion.
• The Lion Who Could­n’t Write (Die Geschichte vom Löwen, der nicht schreiben kon­nte(2002) — The majes­tic king of the jun­gle, a lion, falls in love with a lioness who is read­ing. In order to write a love let­ter to her, he asks a mon­key, a hip­popota­mus, and a dung bee­tle to write it for him, which results in a series of hilar­i­ous and absurd sit­u­a­tions. In the end, the lioness teach­es him to read her­self.
• His rep­re­sen­ta­tive works also include the polit­i­cal enlight­en­ment pic­ture book “I Elect Myself” which explores demo­c­ra­t­ic elec­tions.Ich bin für mich!), The humor­ous pic­ture book about math­e­mat­i­cal con­cepts, “The Lion Who Could­n’t Count to 3“Die Geschichte vom Löwen, der nicht bis 3 zählen kon­nte) and the anti-war dra­ma pic­ture book “The Were­wolf War” (Die Belagerung).

| Birth | Mar­tin Baltscheit | Mar­tin Baltscheit (Wikipedia) / Douban Peo­ple |

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⚰️ 2005 – Death: FK Waechter (full name Friedrich Karl Waechter)

A renowned Ger­man car­toon­ist, illus­tra­tor, and play­wright (1937–2005). He was one of the core satir­i­cal artists of the post­war Neue Frank­furter Schule, known for his extreme­ly sharp pen and ink lines, absurd and rebel­lious anti-author­i­tar­i­an humor, and pro­found human­is­tic warmth.

• Twice award­ed the Ger­man Youth Lit­er­a­ture Prize (DJLP):
• We can still do many things togeth­er. (Wir kön­nen noch viel zusam­men machen(1973) — Award­ed 1975 Ger­man Youth Lit­er­a­ture PrizeA pio­neer­ing pic­ture book that rebels against rigid social rules and prej­u­dices, encour­ag­ing chil­dren to explore the pos­si­bil­i­ties of life through col­lec­tive coop­er­a­tion and inde­pen­dent cre­ation.
• Red Wolf (Der rote Wolf(1998) — Award 1999 Ger­man Youth Lit­er­a­ture PrizeA World War II anti-war epic pic­ture book. A red wolf cub, orphaned, is adopt­ed and raised by a kind human moth­er and daugh­ter. Lat­er, war breaks out, bomb­ing and ruins destroy the town, and the red wolf returns to the waste­land amidst the cru­el flames of war, res­cu­ing a lone­ly human baby in a snow­storm. The work explores the suf­fer­ing and redemp­tion across species through rough water­col­ors and sketch­es.

| Deceased | FK Waechter | FK Waechter (Wikipedia) / Douban Peo­ple |

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🎂 Born 1922: Ursula Wölfel

A renowned Ger­man chil­dren’s lit­er­a­ture writer and edu­ca­tor (1922–2014). She was an impor­tant pio­neer of post­war Ger­man-lan­guage chil­dren’s real­ism lit­er­a­ture, adept at using extreme­ly sim­ple and con­cise lan­guage to depict the true psy­chol­o­gy of ordi­nary chil­dren in post­war pover­ty, infe­ri­or­i­ty com­plex, and gen­er­a­tional gap, with­out embell­ish­ment, and full of clear and gen­tle moral strength.

• Supreme Hon­ors and Rep­re­sen­ta­tive Works:
• At In 1991, he was award­ed the Spe­cial Prize for Life­time Achieve­ment of the Ger­man Youth Lit­er­a­ture Prize (DJLP)..
• Fire Shoes and Wind Shoes (Feuer­schuh und Wind­san­dale(1961) — Award­ed 1962 Ger­man Youth Lit­er­a­ture Prize for Chil­dren’s BooksTim, a lit­tle boy, was often teased by his class­mates for being short and chub­by. On his sev­enth birth­day, his shoe­mak­er father gave him a pair of red leather shoes and took him on a sum­mer hik­ing trip through nature. Along the way, the father and son slept under the stars and expe­ri­enced wind and rain. Through a series of vivid sto­ries, the father guid­ed Tim to accept him­self, and Tim honed his will dur­ing the jour­ney, grow­ing into a cheer­ful and con­fi­dent young man.
• His rep­re­sen­ta­tive works also include the humor­ous ani­mal fairy tale “The Warthog Who Want­ed to Be Beau­ti­ful” (Blaue Wag­ilö), the clas­sic chil­dren’s sto­ry “The White Pup­py” (Geschichte vom kleinen weißen Hund).

| Birth | Ursu­la Wölfel | Ursu­la Wölfel (Wikipedia) |