June 14: Today in the History of Children’s Books

🎂 1923 – Born: Judith Kerr

An immor­tal British female chil­dren’s author and illus­tra­tor (1923–2019). As a Jew­ish refugee who sur­vived the Nazi era, she used her life­long ten­der­ness and inno­cence to leave behind the most com­fort­ing visu­al and lit­er­ary ever­green works for world chil­dren’s lit­er­a­ture.

• Mas­ter­pieces that have stood the test of time:
• Tiger Comes to Have After­noon Tea (The Tiger Who Came to TeaA land­mark mas­ter­piece in the his­to­ry of British chil­dren’s pic­ture books. It trans­forms the hid­den anx­i­eties and unknowns of child­hood into an extreme­ly warm and rit­u­al­is­tic after­noon tea par­ty.
• ““For­get­ful Mog” series (Mog the For­get­ful Cat(): Sales exceed­ed 10 mil­lion copies and it was includ­ed in “1001 Chil­dren’s Books”.
• The first book in an auto­bi­o­graph­i­cal tril­o­gy:Hitler stole the Pink Rab­bit (When Hitler Stole Pink Rab­bit): From the extreme­ly restrained and inno­cent per­spec­tive of a child, it records the dig­ni­ty and love of war refugees amidst their dis­place­ment, and won the Ger­man Youth Lit­er­a­ture Award.

| Birth | Judith Kerr | Judith Kerr (Wikipedia) |

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🎂 Born 1958: James Gurney

A top Amer­i­can real­ist painter and fan­ta­sy writer (1958). He is the visu­al pope of the con­tem­po­rary “pale­on­to­log­i­cal sci­ence fic­tion real­ism” school, merg­ing rig­or­ous archae­ol­o­gy with the ulti­mate aes­thet­ics of oil paint­ing.

• A mas­ter­piece of epic his­to­ry: The Dinosaur King­dom series (Dino­topia)。
• Key rep­re­sen­ta­tive works: Dinosaur King­dom: A Utopia of Man and Drag­on (Dino­topia: A Land Apart from Time)、Dinosaur King­dom: The Buried Empire (Dino­topia: The World Beneath)、Dinosaur King­dom: An Invi­ta­tion to a For­got­ten Land (Dino­topia: Jour­ney to Chan­dara)。
• Visu­al posi­tion: Gur­ney, who pre­vi­ous­ly worked as an illus­tra­tor for Nation­al Geo­graph­ic, imbued the fan­tas­ti­cal world of “humans and high­ly intel­li­gent dinosaurs coex­ist­ing peace­ful­ly and joint­ly build­ing a civ­i­lized soci­ety” with an almost doc­u­men­tary-like real­ism through his exquis­ite clas­si­cal oil paint­ing tech­niques. He estab­lished an extreme­ly high lev­el of aes­thet­ic tech­nique and imag­i­na­tion for chil­dren’s fan­ta­sy non-fic­tion lit­er­a­ture.

| Birth | James Gur­ney | James Gur­ney (Wikipedia) |

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🎂 1945 – Born: Bruce Degen

A renowned and pro­lif­ic Amer­i­can illus­tra­tor and pic­ture book author (1945). He is a leg­endary fig­ure in the his­to­ry of con­tem­po­rary glob­al sci­ence pic­ture books, and his sig­na­ture Amer­i­can pen and ink wash style com­plete­ly rewrote the visu­al land­scape of chil­dren’s sci­ence edu­ca­tion.

• A time­less mas­ter­piece: The Mag­ic School Bus Pic­ture Book Series (The Mag­ic School Bus(By Joan­na Cole)
• Rep­re­sen­ta­tive works for young chil­dren: The Mag­i­cal Jam and Berries (Jam­ber­ry)。
• His­tor­i­cal con­tri­bu­tions: Degan seam­less­ly blends mad­ness, humor, and rig­or­ous sci­en­tif­ic prin­ci­ples. His char­ac­ter, “Ms. Friz­zle,” with her quirky dress and curly-haired dog, dri­ves a mag­i­cal school bus that can expand and con­tract, enter blood ves­sels, and fly to the solar sys­tem, accom­pa­ny­ing gen­er­a­tions of chil­dren world­wide in their sci­en­tif­ic awak­en­ing. With dense infor­ma­tion and car­toon­ish dia­logue box­es, he demon­strates that sci­ence edu­ca­tion can be the coolest, most hilar­i­ous, and most adven­tur­ous adven­ture.

| Birth | Bruce Degen | Bruce Degen (Wikipedia) |

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🎂 1948 – Born: Laurence Yep

An immor­tal Amer­i­can chil­dren’s lit­er­a­ture author of Chi­nese descent, whose Chi­nese name is Ye Xiangt­ianHe is a revered pio­neer and spir­i­tu­al icon in the field of Chi­nese-Amer­i­can chil­dren’s lit­er­a­ture.

• High­est Hon­or: Twice award­ed New­bery Hon­or;2005 Lau­ra Ingalls Wilder Gold Medal (now the Chil­dren’s Lit­er­a­ture Her­itage Award CLLA) Life­time Achieve­ment Award Recip­i­ent.
• Immor­tal mas­ter­pieces:
• New­bery Sil­ver Medal Epic:Drag­on Wings (Drag­onwingsBased on the true his­to­ry of Chi­nese peo­ple man­u­fac­tur­ing air­planes in the Unit­ed States in the ear­ly 20th cen­tu­ry, it por­trays the dig­ni­ty of ear­ly Chi­nese labor­ers who looked up at the stars despite prej­u­dice.
• New­bery Sil­ver Medal sequel:Drag­on Gate (Drag­on’s Gate): Focus­ing on the blood, tears, and resilience of the Chi­nese labor­ers who built the Trans-Amer­i­can Rail­way.
• Lit­er­ary sta­tus: Through­out his life, Yip ded­i­cat­ed him­self to using refined lit­er­ary lan­guage to decon­struct the his­tor­i­cal trau­mas, gen­er­a­tional con­flicts, and cul­tur­al roots of Chi­nese peo­ple with­in the main­stream Amer­i­can lit­er­ary scene. The “drag­on” in his writ­ing is no longer a fero­cious beast in the West­ern con­text, but a sym­bol of nation­al integri­ty and an indomitable spir­it.

| Birth | Lau­rence Yep | Lau­rence Yep (Wikipedia) |

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🎂 Born in 1968: Ľuboslav Paľo

One of Slo­va­ki­a’s most out­stand­ing con­tem­po­rary illus­tra­tors and graph­ic artists (1968). He is a visu­al mas­ter in the con­tem­po­rary Cen­tral Euro­pean pic­ture book scene who inher­its the spir­it of tra­di­tion­al print­mak­ing while also pos­sess­ing a strong sense of mod­ern abstract humor.

• High­est Hon­or: Win­ning an award for her work “Did­n’t Get Caught!” 2005 Bratisla­va Inter­na­tion­al Bien­ni­al of Illus­tra­tion (BIB) Gold­en Apple Award.
• Award-win­ning rep­re­sen­ta­tive works: “Did­n’t get caught!” (Nicht erwis­cht!)。
• Artis­tic fea­tures: Palyu’s style is full of expres­sion­ist wild­ness and naivety. He is extreme­ly skilled at using large areas of thick oil paint, scraper tex­tures, and sim­ple, almost child­like lines to cre­ate an ani­mal fable world on paper with dra­mat­ic con­flict and grass­roots humor.

| Birth | Luboslav Padó | Ľuboslav Paľo (BIB) |

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🗓️ Other Important Creator Briefings

event	fig­ure	Details/Awards	Wikipedia link
born	Lin­sey Namio­ka	Nianxi (1929), a renowned Chi­nese-Amer­i­can nov­el­ist and math­e­mati­cian, is best known for her humor­ous and nuanced por­tray­al of the chal­lenges and cul­tur­al clash­es faced by Chi­nese Amer­i­cans inte­grat­ing into West­ern soci­ety in her mas­ter­piece, *Young Young’s Clum­sy Ears*.Yang the Youngest and His Ter­ri­ble EarHe is high­ly regard­ed by libraries across the Unit­ed States for his excep­tion­al empa­thy.	Lensey Namio­ka
born	Nico­las Cler­i­hew Bent­ley	A renowned 20th-cen­tu­ry British graph­ic artist and satir­i­cal car­toon­ist (1907–1978). He wrote the lyrics for T.S. Eliot’s immor­tal chil­dren’s clas­sic, *The Old Pos­sum’s Cat*.Old Pos­sum’s Book of Prac­ti­cal CatsShe cre­at­ed the most life­like and expres­sive cat illus­tra­tions, which were per­ma­nent­ly includ­ed in the first edi­tion of “1001 Chil­dren’s Books”.	Nico­las Bent­ley
born	Pene­lope Farmer	A renowned British female fan­ta­sy author for chil­dren (1939). Her time-trav­el goth­ic clas­sic, *A Time in Char­lot­te’s Life* (1939).Char­lotte Some­timesWith extreme­ly pro­found writ­ing, it explores iden­ti­ty and the lone­li­ness of time, was select­ed for “1001 Chil­dren’s Books”, and has pro­found­ly inspired the cre­ation of many rock bands in lat­er gen­er­a­tions.	Pene­lope Farmer
born	Yuta­ka Muraka­mi	A Japan­ese nation­al trea­sure-lev­el ink painter and illus­tra­tor (1936–2022). He spent many years illus­trat­ing tra­di­tion­al Japan­ese lit­er­a­ture and folk mythol­o­gy, and is best known for his clas­sic work, *The Sil­ver Bas­ket*, which blends the del­i­cate charm of tra­di­tion­al East­ern ink paint­ing with a mod­ern sense of spa­tial geom­e­try.The sil­ver bas­ket), won 1991 BIB Plaque.	Yuta­ka Muraka­mi