June 8th: Today in Children’s Book History

⚰️ 1990 — Died: Suekichi Akaba

Japan’s immor­tal mas­ter of pic­ture books and illus­tra­tor (1910–1990). He was the first Asian mas­ter to receive the high­est visu­al hon­or in inter­na­tion­al chil­dren’s lit­er­a­ture, and he suc­cess­ful­ly and seam­less­ly infused the “blank space” of Chi­nese ink paint­ing and the spir­it of tra­di­tion­al Japan­ese paint­ing into the skele­ton of mod­ern pic­ture books.

• High­est Hon­or: 1980 Hans Chris­t­ian Ander­sen Award (HCAA) for Illus­tra­tionThe win­ner.
• Immor­tal Mas­ter­pieces:
• Suho’s White Horse (スーホの白い马A mas­ter­piece in the his­to­ry of world pic­ture books, it uses a mag­nif­i­cent visu­al style with a hor­i­zon­tal dou­ble-page spread to depict the vast­ness and scenery of the Inner Mon­go­lian grass­lands and the trag­ic grandeur of life.
• “A Very, Very Big Sweet Pota­to” (おおきなおおきなおいもIt show­cas­es the ulti­mate in chil­dren’s nat­ur­al play­ful­ness and rev­el­ry.
• A visu­al def­i­n­i­tion of clas­sic folk tales:“Momo­taro”、Crane Wife (Crane girl room)、The Car­pen­ter and Ghost Six (Daigong and Oniroku)、Chase Chase Chase (そら、にげろ)。
• Artis­tic Sta­tus: Sue­kichi Aka­bane spent many years liv­ing in North­east Chi­na and Inner Mon­go­lia, where the vast plains thor­ough­ly influ­enced his artis­tic soul. He ded­i­cat­ed his life to reshap­ing folk tales with the most tra­di­tion­al and noble East­ern brush­strokes, employ­ing a vig­or­ous yet ethe­re­al style that estab­lished the high­est canon of East­ern aes­thet­ics for the glob­al pic­ture book indus­try.

| Death | Sue­kichi Aka­ba | Aka­bane Sueyoshi (Wikipedia) |

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⚰️ 1968 – Death: Elizabeth Enright

A promi­nent Amer­i­can real­ist chil­dren’s author and illus­tra­tor (1907–1968). She was a pil­lar of post­war Amer­i­can mid­dle-class fam­i­ly real­ist nov­els, known for her extreme­ly keen obser­va­tion of every­day child­hood psy­chol­o­gy and her refined nar­ra­tive style.

• High­est Hon­or: The 1939 New­bery Medal The recip­i­ent was a New­bery Hon­or recip­i­ent.
• Rep­re­sen­ta­tive works:
• Sum­mer of the Sil­ver Thim­ble (Thim­ble Sum­mer(): Win­ner of the 1939 Gold Medal, doc­u­ment­ing the mag­i­cal, warm, and serendip­i­tous sum­mer that girl Gar­nett spent on a farm in Wis­con­sin.
• The Van­ish­ing Lake (Gone-Away Lake): Win­ner of the New­bery Sil­ver Medal, it is full of the poet­ic spir­it of nat­ur­al explo­ration.
• The Melendy Fam­i­ly Tetral­o­gy (The Melendy Fam­i­ly Quar­tet): Includ­ing Sat­ur­day Adven­ture (The Sat­ur­days), The Strange New Home (The Four-Sto­ry Mis­take), New Broth­ers (Then there were five), The Chain (Spi­der­web for TwoIt is a nation­al­ly rec­og­nized ever­green fam­i­ly ensem­ble nov­el.

| Died | Eliz­a­beth Enright | Eliz­a­beth Enright (Wikipedia) |

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⚰️ 2014 – Passed away: Taruhi Furuta

One of Japan’s great­est con­tem­po­rary chil­dren’s lit­er­a­ture writ­ers, crit­ics, and the­o­rists (1927–2014). He was the core fig­ure in the post­war Japan­ese chil­dren’s lit­er­a­ture move­ment, bid­ding farewell to “old-fash­ioned sweet indoc­tri­na­tion” and mov­ing towards “lib­er­at­ing chil­dren’s sub­jec­tive rights.”

• A mas­ter­piece for pos­ter­i­ty:
• Adven­ture in the Clos­et (おしいれのぼうけん(Co-writ­ten with Sei­ichi Taba­ta): A phe­nom­e­nal pic­ture book mas­ter­piece that has sold mil­lions of copies, using sus­pense­ful psy­cho­log­i­cal real­ism to decon­struct child­hood fears and resis­tance.
• The Tall First Grad­er and the Short Sec­ond Grad­er (The 1st year old boy and the 2nd year old boyA time­less mon­u­ment in the his­to­ry of bridge books, per­fect­ly depict­ing the pure pro­tec­tion among chil­dren.
• “Go For­ward, Iron Buck­et!” (だんち5级がぼくのうち)。
• His­tor­i­cal con­tri­bu­tions: Furu­ta Ashihi’s “Man­i­festo for Mod­ern Chil­dren’s Lit­er­a­ture” com­plete­ly changed the direc­tion of Japan­ese chil­dren’s book cre­ation. He advo­cat­ed that lit­er­a­ture should face up to the real life state of chil­dren, such as sweat­ing, run­ny noses, naugh­ti­ness, and even rebel­lion. His cre­ation and the­o­ry were equal­ly impor­tant, and he enjoys the lofty sta­tus of a mas­ter in the entire East Asian chil­dren’s lit­er­a­ture world.

| Passed Away | Taruhi Furu­ta | Furu­ta Ashik­abi (Wikipedia) |

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⚰️ 1794 – Death: Gottfried August Bürger

A renowned Ger­man clas­si­cal poet and writer (1747–1794). He trans­formed absurd and boast­ful sto­ries cir­cu­lat­ing among the peo­ple into a mir­a­cle in the his­to­ry of pop­u­lar lit­er­a­ture for all mankind.

• The Bible of Time: The Adven­tures of Baron Mun­chausen (Des Frei­her­rn von Münch­hausen)。
• His­tor­i­cal impact: Based on the Eng­lish text by RE Raspe, Bürg­er bril­liant­ly rewrote the sto­ry in Ger­man. Using an extreme­ly seri­ous yet absurd­ly humor­ous tone, he nar­rat­ed Baron Min­hausen’s series of crazy adven­tures that defied the laws of physics, such as “fly­ing out of a mud pit by his own hair” and “rid­ing a can­non­ball.” This work not only estab­lished the bound­aries between mod­ern satire and absurd lit­er­a­ture but also became a cat­a­lyst for the unbri­dled imag­i­na­tion of chil­dren world­wide, and is per­ma­nent­ly includ­ed in “1001 Chil­dren’s Books.”

| Died | Got­tfried August Bürg­er | [Got­tfried August Bürg­er (Wikipedia)] |

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🎂 1927 – Born: Miloslav Jágr

Czech Repub­lic’s immor­tal graph­ic artist, illus­tra­tor, and ani­ma­tion film direc­tor (1927–1997). He was one of the key visu­al mas­ters of the Czech mod­ernist revival of pic­ture books and pup­pet ani­ma­tion in the mid-to-late 20th cen­tu­ry.

• High­est Hon­or: With its lines full of mod­ern dec­o­ra­tive flair and humor­ous ten­sion, it won… Plaque Award, 1981 Bratisla­va Inter­na­tion­al Bien­ni­al of Illus­tra­tions (BIB).
• Award-win­ning mas­ter­pieces: How Shoe­mak­ers Start­ed a War Over a Red Dress (Jak šev­ci zvedli vojnu pro čer­ve­nou sukni)。
• Artis­tic fea­tures: Jager’s works pos­sess a unique cross-dis­ci­pli­nary charm, blend­ing tra­di­tion­al Bohemi­an folk wood­cuts with mod­ern abstract lines. He taught at the Acad­e­my of Arts and Crafts in Prague (UMPRUM) for many years. His works fea­ture cheer­ful and unre­strained col­ors and uncon­ven­tion­al com­po­si­tions, per­fect­ly show­cas­ing the unique, intel­lec­tu­al­ly philo­soph­i­cal, and earthy aes­thet­ics of the gold­en age of Czech pic­ture book art.

| Birth | Miloslav Jágr | [Miloslav Jágr (Wikipedia)] |

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🗓️ Other Important Creator Briefings

event	fig­ure	Details/Awards	Wikipedia link
born	Ivan Southall	A leg­endary fig­ure in Aus­tralian mod­ern real­ist chil­dren’s lit­er­a­ture (1921–2008). He was the first and only author to cre­ate a mas­ter­piece of group por­traits reflect­ing on the choic­es young peo­ple make grow­ing up in extreme envi­ron­ments and under con­di­tions of iso­la­tion, titled *Josh*.Josh) picked The Carnegie Medal (UK) An Aus­tralian writer. His rep­re­sen­ta­tive works also include *The Dust Road*, a work doc­u­ment­ing dig­ni­ty in the face of nat­ur­al dis­as­ters.Ash Road).	[Ivan Southall]
born	Claire Mer­leau-Pon­ty	A renowned French chil­dren’s author and art edu­ca­tor. As the daugh­ter of philoso­pher Mer­leau-Pon­ty, her for­ay into chil­dren’s lit­er­a­ture also demon­strates remark­able decon­struc­tive wis­dom, exem­pli­fied by her mas­ter­piece *The Big Bad Wolf*, which focus­es on folk­lore tra­di­tions and blends humor with anthro­po­log­i­cal reflec­tion.Les Grands Méchants Loups) won The 1991 French Prix Sor­cières.	[Claire Mer­leau-Pon­ty]
born	Idw­al Jones	A Welsh-Amer­i­can nov­el­ist and crit­ic (1884–1964). His mas­ter­piece, *The Car­a­van of the Gyp­sy Per­form­ers*, vivid­ly depicts the idyl­lic car­a­van life of Euro­pean Gyp­sy street per­form­ers and del­i­cate­ly cap­tures the themes of free­dom and youth­ful psy­chol­o­gy.Whistler’s Van) won New­bery Sil­ver Medal, 1937.	[Idw­al Jones]
born	Käthi Bhend	A lead­ing con­tem­po­rary Swiss female graph­ic artist and illus­tra­tor (1942). Her works include the chil­dren’s philo­soph­i­cal essay “Two Lit­tle Bears” (…).Brud­er Bär and Schwest­er BärThe illus­tra­tions, drawn with extreme­ly del­i­cate lines and full of clas­si­cal pen and ink and the tran­quil and dynam­ic feel­ing of nature, have been per­ma­nent­ly includ­ed in “1001 Chil­dren’s Books”.	[Käthi Bhend]
born	Sher­ryl Jor­dan	A renowned New Zealand female sci­ence fic­tion and fan­ta­sy writer (1949). Her rep­re­sen­ta­tive work is *Locke*.Roc­coThrough a boy’s thrilling adven­ture through an Ice Age tribe a thou­sand years ago, the book pro­found­ly explores eco­log­i­cal bal­ance and the fate of human­i­ty, and is includ­ed in “1001 Chil­dren’s Books”.	[Sher­ryl Jor­dan]
born	Pen­ny Dale	A renowned and pro­lif­ic British author and illus­tra­tor of chil­dren’s pic­ture books (1954). She was excep­tion­al­ly skilled at cap­tur­ing the sweet, order­ly inter­ac­tion between par­ents and chil­dren before bed­time, with her mas­ter­piece being *Ten in One Bed*.Ten in the BedIt con­sis­tent­ly ranks high on the lists of essen­tial read­ing for ear­ly child­hood rhythm edu­ca­tion in major libraries around the world.	[Pen­ny Dale]
born	Car­olyn Mey­er	A renowned Amer­i­can his­tor­i­cal bio­graph­i­cal nov­el­ist for chil­dren and young adults (1935). She was par­tic­u­lar­ly adept at decon­struct­ing the vicis­si­tudes of his­to­ry from the nuanced per­spec­tives of mar­gin­al­ized and dis­ad­van­taged women, her most rep­re­sen­ta­tive work being the crit­i­cal­ly acclaimed *White Lilac* (1935).White Lilacs).	[Car­olyn Mey­er]
Death	Ivy Ruck­man	A renowned Amer­i­can chil­dren’s real­ist nar­ra­tive writer (1931–2021; his birth­day is also record­ed as May 25th). His rep­re­sen­ta­tive work is *The Night of the Tor­na­do*.Night of the TwistersThe film uses real­is­tic details to depict the ten­der bond between fam­i­ly mem­bers who hold on tight­ly to each oth­er dur­ing the dark night of a nat­ur­al dis­as­ter.	[Ivy Ruck­man]
Death	Vio­let Need­ham	A renowned British his­tor­i­cal fan­ta­sy nov­el­ist for chil­dren dur­ing the Victorian/Edwardian era (1876–1967; her birth­day is also record­ed as June 5th). Her rep­re­sen­ta­tive work is *Wen­dre For­est*.The Woods of Win­driIt was select­ed as one of the “1001 Chil­dren’s Books”.	[Vio­let Need­ham]