Bridge of Ajia

May 23: Today in the History of Children’s Books

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⚰️ 2021 — Passed away: Eric Carle

The renowned Amer­i­can illus­tra­tor and col­or magi­cian (1929–2021). He rev­o­lu­tion­ized the visu­al aes­thet­ics of mod­ern chil­dren’s pic­ture books with his unique tis­sue paper col­lage style.

  • A mas­ter­piece for pos­ter­i­ty:
  • The Very Hun­gry Cater­pil­lar (The Very Hun­gry Cater­pil­larA mir­a­cle in the his­to­ry of mod­ern pic­ture books, trans­lat­ed into dozens of lan­guages, it is the first pic­ture book that count­less chil­dren encounter in their lives.
  • Brown Bear, Brown Bear, What Are You Look­ing At? (Brown Bear, Brown Bear, What Do You See?)、The Busy Spi­der、“Dad­dy, I Want the Moon”.
  • Indus­try Col­lab­o­ra­tive Learn­ing:A Let­ter to Future Artists (Artist to Artist)。
  • High­est Hon­or: Lau­ra Ingalls Wilder Gold Medal (CLLA) The win­ner.
  • His­tor­i­cal sig­nif­i­cance: He cre­at­ed more than 70 works in his life­time, which are not only a feast for the eyes, but also turned books into “playable toys” through three-dimen­sion­al designs such as page turn­ing and hole punch­ing, prov­ing to the world that chil­dren’s books can have a heal­ing pow­er that tran­scends nation­al bor­ders.

| Passed Away | Eric Car­le | Eric Car­le (Wikipedia) |

🎂 1910 – Born: Margaret Wise Brown

Amer­i­can leg­endary chil­dren’s book author (1910–1952). She is the uncrowned queen of the “bed­time sto­ry” genre and a cen­tral pio­neer in the his­to­ry of mod­ern pic­ture book devel­op­ment.

  • Glob­al Mod­el:
  • Good­night Moon (Good­night MoonPub­lished in 1947, illus­trat­ed by Clement Hurd. It is hailed as a “per­fect lul­la­by” in the his­to­ry of pic­ture books.
  • Run­away Bun­ny (The Run­away Bun­ny): Pub­lished in 1942.
  • Lit­er­ary style: Her writ­ing is qui­et, gen­tle, and pos­sess­es a remark­able sense of rhythm and cadence. Brown deeply under­stands the psy­chol­o­gy of young chil­dren and excels at cre­at­ing an unpar­al­leled sense of secu­ri­ty for chil­dren through repet­i­tive, gen­tle lan­guage with­in the pages of her books. Both of these mas­ter­pieces are includ­ed in “1001 Chil­dren’s Books” and hold an irre­place­able and supreme posi­tion world­wide (includ­ing in Chi­na).
  • A trib­ute to biogra­phies: “The Impor­tant Things About Mar­garet Wise Brown“The Impor­tant Thing About Mar­garet Wise Brown)。

| Birth | Mar­garet Wise Brown | Mar­garet Wise Brown (Wikipedia) |

🎂 1898 – Born: Scott O’Dell

A renowned Amer­i­can his­tor­i­cal nov­el­ist and mas­ter of adven­ture lit­er­a­ture (1898–1989). He is a lead­ing fig­ure in mod­ern Amer­i­can young adult lit­er­a­ture.

  • High­est Hon­or: 1972 Hans Chris­t­ian Ander­sen Award (HCAA) for Best WriterThe win­ner.
  • Rep­re­sen­ta­tive works:
  • Island of the Blue Dol­phins (Island of the Blue Dol­phins): Award­ed New­bery Medal, 1961It tells the leg­endary sto­ry of an Indi­an girl who sur­vived alone on a desert­ed island for eigh­teen years.
  • One-Fifth of the King (The King’s Fifth): New­bery Sil­ver Medal win­ner.
  • Indus­try con­tri­bu­tions: He devot­ed his life to his­to­ry and nature, and his works are filled with pro­found reflec­tions on the rela­tion­ship between human­i­ty and nature, and cul­tur­al con­flicts. He lat­er found­ed the Scott O’Dell His­tor­i­cal Fic­tion Award, which remains the high­est hon­or in the field in the Unit­ed States.

| Birth | Scott O’Dell | Scott O’Dell (Wikipedia) |

🎂 Born 1935: Susan Cooper

A renowned British/American fan­ta­sy author. She is known for infus­ing clas­sic British mythol­o­gy (par­tic­u­lar­ly the leg­ends of King Arthur and Welsh folk­lore) into mod­ern fan­ta­sy lit­er­a­ture.

  • High­est Hon­or: 1976 New­bery Medal The win­ner.
  • Rep­re­sen­ta­tive works:
  • “The Five-Part Series “Dark­ness Is Spread­ing” (The Dark Is Ris­ing SequenceVol­ume 4 of the seriesGrey King-The Grey King(Win­ner of the New­bery Medal, Vol­ume 2)Dark­ness is spread­ingIt won the New­bery Hon­or. This is an epic tale of good ver­sus evil, pos­sess­ing extreme­ly high artis­tic mer­it as a nov­el.

| Birth | Susan Coop­er | Susan Coop­er (Wikipedia) |

🎂 1940 — Birth: Masayuki Yabūchi

A renowned Japan­ese illus­tra­tor and sci­ence painter (1940–2000). He is wide­ly rec­og­nized as Japan’s “num­ber one ani­mal painter,” and through­out his life he adhered to extreme­ly rig­or­ous sci­en­tif­ic obser­va­tion and metic­u­lous brush­work.

  • Rep­re­sen­ta­tive works:
  • Time to get up、“Togeth­er with Mom” (おかあさんといっしょ)、““Baby Ani­mals and Their Moth­ers” Series (Ani­mal Moth­ers)。
  • He cre­at­ed vivid sci­en­tif­ic illus­tra­tions for the mas­ter­piece “Masao Kawai’s Ani­mal Records”.
  • Artis­tic fea­tures: Masayu­ki Yabunouch­i’s paint­ings do not fea­ture exag­ger­at­ed anthro­po­mor­phism. Instead, he uses thou­sands of extreme­ly del­i­cate ani­mal hair lines to recre­ate the purest and most authen­tic dig­ni­ty and warmth of nature’s crea­tures on paper.

| Birth | Yabu­uchi Masayu­ki | Masayu­ki Yabu­uchi (Wikipedia) |

🗓️ Other Important Creator Briefings

eventfig­ureDetails/AwardsWikipedia link
bornPeter PanalA renowned Amer­i­can illus­tra­tor. His dis­tinc­tive style, char­ac­ter­ized by its strong lines and Native Amer­i­can themes, earned him three Calde­cott Hon­ors. His rep­re­sen­ta­tive works include…The desert belongs to them“and“Eagle, I am your broth­er.》.Peter Par­nall
DeathClyde Robert BraA pro­lif­ic Amer­i­can chil­dren’s author. Spe­cial­izes in writ­ing his­tor­i­cal and adven­ture sto­ries for low­er ele­men­tary school chil­dren; her rep­re­sen­ta­tive work is…Our guardian lion》.CR Bul­la

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