Bridge of Ajia

June 21: Today in the History of Children’s Books

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🎂 John Agard, born 1949

Guyana-born British poet, chil­dren’s author, and play­wright (1949). He is one of the most pres­ti­gious cross-cul­tur­al voic­es in the con­tem­po­rary Eng­lish-speak­ing world, renowned for his unique Caribbean oral tra­di­tion rhythms and humor­ous folk charm, and was award­ed the Queen’s Gold Medal for Poet­ry.

  • His mas­ter­pieces and hon­ors:
  • Lend Me Your Wings (Lend Me Your WingsIt was includ­ed in “1001 Chil­dren’s Books”.
  • Mod­ern, warm, and ever­green tree for young chil­dren:When I Met Lan­guage (When Crea­ture Met Crea­tureVisu­al mas­ter born on June 11Kita­mu­ra Megu­mi(Draw illus­tra­tions).
  • Lit­er­ary qual­i­ties: Agard’s writ­ing is full of musi­cal syn­co­pa­tion and sub­ver­sive word­play. He is excep­tion­al­ly adept at using seem­ing­ly sim­ple, child­like, col­lo­qui­al lan­guage to encap­su­late grand themes about com­mu­ni­ca­tion, love, iden­ti­ty, and diver­si­ty and equal­i­ty. His col­lab­o­ra­tion with Megu­mi Kita­mu­ra on “When Gogo Meets Yuuyu” estab­lish­es a supreme ratio­nal and emo­tion­al par­a­digm for young chil­dren through the phys­i­cal and emo­tion­al col­li­sion between two won­drous beings who can­not com­mu­ni­cate with lan­guage, demon­strat­ing that “under­stand­ing is not only about sound, but also about the con­nec­tion of hearts.”

| Birth | John Agard | John Agard (Wikipedia) |

🎂 1925 – Born: Robert Kraus

An immor­tal Amer­i­can chil­dren’s book author, illus­tra­tor, and pub­lish­er (1925–2001). He was one of the most empa­thet­ic and ther­a­peu­tic ear­ly read­ing men­tors in the Unit­ed States dur­ing the mid-to-late 20th cen­tu­ry, and he illus­trat­ed cov­ers and satir­i­cal car­toons for The New York­er mag­a­zine for many years.

  • A time­less mas­ter­piece of heal­ing and immor­tal­i­ty: Ah Hu final­ly fig­ured it out! (Leo the Late Bloomer(Illus­tra­tion by Jose Aruego)
  • Core Ear­ly Child­hood Mile­stones: Whose Mouse Are You? (Whose Mouse Are You?)、“The Lit­tle Eagle” (Owliv­er)。
  • His­tor­i­cal con­tri­bu­tions: His award-win­ning mas­ter­piece, *Tiger’s Awak­en­ing*, has been a glob­al phe­nom­e­non for over half a cen­tu­ry and is includ­ed in *1001 Chil­dren’s Books*. Caru­so bril­liant­ly cap­tured the “late bloomer” rhythm of child­hood devel­op­ment. His lit­tle tiger, Tiger, can’t write, speaks clum­si­ly, and slurps food, but his moth­er firm­ly believes, “He just has­n’t reached his time yet.” With deeply mov­ing humor, he tells chil­dren and anx­ious par­ents world­wide fac­ing the pres­sures of grow­ing up: respect life’s inde­pen­dent clock, patient­ly await the blos­som­ing of life, and under­stand that every stage of growth has its own dig­ni­ty.

| Birth | Robert Kraus | Robert Kraus (Wikipedia) |

⚰️ 1968 – Death: Captain We. Johns

William Earl Johns, an immor­tal British his­tor­i­cal avi­a­tion writer and leg­endary avi­a­tor of the Roy­al Fly­ing Corps (RFC) dur­ing World War I (1893–1968), is a tow­er­ing pio­neer in the his­to­ry of chil­dren’s war chron­i­cles and hard­core aer­i­al com­bat adven­ture lit­er­a­ture.

  • An Immor­tal and Ever­last­ing Epic: ““Cap­tain Big­gs” series（Big­gles).
  • Rep­re­sen­ta­tive works: Big­gs: “The Camel” is Com­ing (Big­gles: The Camels Are Com­ingPub­lished in 1932.
  • Cul­tur­al his­to­ry impact: Cap­tain Johns per­fect­ly infused his own raw, bloody bat­tles in the skies, along with his rig­or­ous knowl­edge of the mechan­i­cal con­struc­tion of biplane fight­ers from World War I and World War II, into the long life of the young hero “Big­gles.” Span­ning decades and com­pris­ing near­ly a hun­dred books, the series achieved aston­ish­ing sales of tens of mil­lions of copies world­wide and was includ­ed in “1001 Chil­dren’s Books.” He com­plete­ly reject­ed the rigid and hyp­o­crit­i­cal grand nar­ra­tives of politi­cians, instead using the purest courage of sailors and pilots, their unwa­ver­ing loy­al­ty to their teams, and their chival­rous dig­ni­ty to inspire count­less young peo­ple in the Eng­lish-speak­ing world with unyield­ing spir­it.

| Passed Away | Cap­tain WE Johns | WE Johns (Wikipedia) |

⚰️ 1992 – Passed away: Yoshiko Uchida

A renowned Japan­ese-Amer­i­can female chil­dren’s lit­er­a­ture author and his­tor­i­cal nar­ra­tive mas­ter (1921–1992). She was a pio­neer in the mid-to-late 20th cen­tu­ry who brought the “his­to­ry of the suf­fer­ing of Japan­ese Amer­i­cans in con­cen­tra­tion camps dur­ing World War II” into the main­stream chil­dren’s nar­ra­tive cir­cle with extreme­ly high lit­er­ary dig­ni­ty.

  • A time­less his­tor­i­cal mas­ter­piece: The Best Bad Thing (The Best Bad Thing)。
  • Lit­er­ary sta­tus: Yoshiko Uchi­da was born in Cal­i­for­nia after World War I. Fol­low­ing the attack on Pearl Har­bor in World War II, she and her fam­i­ly were impris­oned in a Jew­ish con­cen­tra­tion camp tar­get­ing Japan­ese Amer­i­cans. This painful mem­o­ry of humil­i­a­tion and sep­a­ra­tion became the fuel for her life­long writ­ing. Her mas­ter­piece, *The Best of the Bad Things*, through the per­spec­tive of a girl named Reiko, del­i­cate­ly and empa­thet­i­cal­ly records the aston­ish­ing fam­i­ly cohe­sion, opti­mism, and unwa­ver­ing spir­it of an immi­grant fam­i­ly fac­ing adver­si­ty beneath a glam­orous exte­ri­or. With remark­ably gen­tle prose, she helped minor­i­ty chil­dren redis­cov­er their his­tor­i­cal roots and spir­i­tu­al empow­er­ment amidst the ruins of war.

| Passed Away | Yoshiko Uchi­da | Yoshiko Uchi­da (Wikipedia) |

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