June 22: Today in Children’s Book History

⚰️ 1956 – Death: Walter de la Mare

The immor­tal British clas­si­cal poet and nov­el­ist (1873–1956). He is rec­og­nized as the “supreme pope of poet­ry and fan­ta­sy” in the his­to­ry of Eng­lish chil­dren’s lit­er­a­ture. With his sil­very moon­light-like, mys­te­ri­ous, ethe­re­al, and rhyth­mi­cal­ly pro­found writ­ing, he com­plete­ly set the aes­thet­ic ceil­ing for mod­ern Eng­lish chil­dren’s poet­ry and super­nat­ur­al nar­ra­tives.

• High­est Hon­or: Award­ed for the famous chil­dren’s sto­ry col­lec­tion 1947 Carnegie Medal.
• An immor­tal mas­ter­piece: Chil­dren’s Sto­ry Col­lec­tion (Col­lect­ed Sto­ries for Chil­dren)。
• Cul­tur­al his­to­ry impact: De La Mare’s writ­ing pos­sess­es a rare, dream­like, noble, and melan­cholic mag­ic. His clas­sic, immor­tal poems, such as…Spring nights are like sil­ver》(Sil­ver)、《雪》(SnowHis work, which has been rein­ter­pret­ed in recent years as a pic­ture book for young chil­dren by renowned con­tem­po­rary illus­tra­tors such as Car­oli­na Rabei, still exudes a time­less vital­i­ty. He firm­ly believed that chil­dren pos­sess a more acute spir­i­tu­al intu­ition than adults, and his cre­ations have set the high­est stan­dard for defend­ing the mys­te­ri­ous imag­i­na­tion of child­hood through­out the Eng­lish-speak­ing world.

| Deceased | Wal­ter de la Mare | Wal­ter de la Mare (Wikipedia) |

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⚰️ 2021 — Passed away: Patricia Reilly Giff

An immor­tal Amer­i­can female chil­dren’s lit­er­a­ture author and edu­ca­tor (1935–2021). She worked as an ele­men­tary school teacher and read­ing con­sul­tant for twen­ty years and was extreme­ly skilled at using a very gen­tle and empa­thet­ic real­is­tic style to soothe the hid­den inner trau­mas of chil­dren in the face of war, fos­ter care, and the pain of los­ing a loved one.

• High­est Hon­or: Twice award­ed the New­bery Hon­or The win­ner.
• A time­less mas­ter­piece of psy­cho­log­i­cal heal­ing:
• Lily’s Lies (Lily’s Cross­ing(Sil­ver Award, 1998): Focus­ing on the inno­cent and lov­ing rela­tion­ship between a talk­a­tive girl and a Hun­gar­i­an refugee boy in the post-World War II era, tran­scend­ing prej­u­dice.
• Hol­ly’s Draw­ings (Pic­tures of Hol­lis Woods(Sil­ver Award, 2003): A touch­ing epic about a home­less girl in fos­ter care who finds love and belong­ing through her paint­brush.
• Lit­er­ary sta­tus: Gif­ford’s nar­ra­tive is crisp and ele­gant. She nev­er con­de­scend­ing­ly offers sym­pa­thy, but rather, through vivid details of every­day life, she empow­ers chil­dren who are lone­ly or mar­gin­al­ized with the most con­sid­er­ate psy­cho­log­i­cal capac­i­ty and dig­ni­ty of self-iden­ti­ty.

| Passed Away | Patri­cia Reil­ly Giff | Patri­cia Reil­ly Giff (Wikipedia) |

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🎂 Born in 1943: Jan Mark

Janet Mar­jorie Mark, a promi­nent British female chil­dren’s author (1943–2006), was a pil­lar of the British psy­cho­log­i­cal real­ism nar­ra­tive school for chil­dren after World War II. She was known for her extreme­ly sharp social insights and a bold, uncon­ven­tion­al writ­ing style.

• High­est Hon­or: He has won the Carnegie Medal twice. The win­ner.
• Award-win­ning rep­re­sen­ta­tive works:
• Thun­der and Light­ning (Thun­der and Light­nings): A ground­break­ing debut nov­el that won the Carnegie Medal in 1976. Through the obses­sion of two boys with the Light­ning fight­er jet, it del­i­cate­ly depicts a deep friend­ship that tran­scends social class and an accep­tance of the vicis­si­tudes of fate.
• Core Psy­chol­o­gy Clas­sics:There’s noth­ing to be afraid of. (Noth­ing to be afraid of Of)。
• Lit­er­ary con­no­ta­tion: Mark’s writ­ing is full of British dark humor and cold, ana­lyt­i­cal think­ing. She ded­i­cat­ed her life to decon­struct­ing the hyp­o­crit­i­cal rules imposed on chil­dren by adult soci­ety, con­fronting the real sparks and pains of dai­ly life in schools and fam­i­lies, and is wide­ly rec­og­nized as a Canon of con­tem­po­rary Low Coun­tries and British chil­dren’s real­ism.

| Birth | Jan Mark | Jan Mark (Wikipedia) |

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🎂 1893 – Born: Cynthia Harnett

A renowned British female his­tor­i­cal nov­el­ist and graph­ic illus­tra­tor (1893–1981). She was a mas­ter sto­ry­teller in the mid-20th cen­tu­ry who seam­less­ly blend­ed “extreme­ly hard­core archae­o­log­i­cal his­tor­i­cal doc­u­ments with chil­dren’s detec­tive adven­tures.”

• High­est Hon­or: Win­ner of the award for the famous nov­el “Wool Bag” 1951 Carnegie Medal.
• Immor­tal and time­less clas­sics: Wool Bag (The Wool-Pack)。
• His­tor­i­cal con­tri­bu­tions: Har­nett pos­sessed an almost obses­sive rig­or in her research of the social divi­sion of labor, guild oper­a­tions, and archi­tec­tur­al style of medieval Eng­land. In *The Wool Bag*, she per­son­al­ly cre­at­ed remark­ably pre­cise pen-and-ink illus­tra­tions, nar­rat­ing the epic tale of how the son of a 15th-cen­tu­ry wool mer­chant clev­er­ly foiled a smug­gling con­spir­a­cy to save his fam­i­ly from cri­sis. She com­plete­ly depart­ed from rigid didac­ti­cism, using ratio­nal his­tor­i­cal detail to uphold the dig­ni­ty of a young man’s inde­pen­dent explo­ration.

| Birth | Cyn­thia Har­nett | Cyn­thia Har­nett (Wikipedia) |

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⚰️ 2006 – Death: Asun Balzola

Asson­son Bal­so­la Her­lo (1942–2006), a Span­ish nation­al trea­sure-lev­el female graph­ic artist, illus­tra­tor, and trans­la­tor, was a lead­ing visu­al icon who spear­head­ed the inter­na­tion­al devel­op­ment of Basque cul­ture and mod­ern Span­ish pic­ture book aes­thet­ics dur­ing the post-war Fran­co dic­ta­tor­ship and the peri­od of demo­c­ra­t­ic revival.

• Inter­na­tion­al high­est hon­or: With her mas­ter­piece “The Sto­ry of the Lit­tle Chick,” char­ac­ter­ized by its warm water­col­or style and poet­ic use of white space, she won the award. Gold­en Apple Award at the 1985 Bratisla­va Inter­na­tion­al Bien­ni­al of Illus­tra­tion (BIB).
• Award-win­ning rep­re­sen­ta­tive works: The Sto­ry of the Lit­tle Chick (Txi­toen isto­rioa)。
• Visu­al Aes­thet­ics: Bal­so­la’s use of col­or is excep­tion­al­ly ele­gant and restrained, deeply influ­enced by the light and shad­ow of the Mediter­ranean. She is par­tic­u­lar­ly adept at using large areas of wet, trans­par­ent water­col­or wash­es and live­ly, free-flow­ing sin­gle-line sketch­es to depict the purest and most vibrant dai­ly lives of chil­dren and small ani­mals. She has not only won the Span­ish Nation­al Illus­tra­tion Award mul­ti­ple times, but also, through her life’s work, estab­lished a noble and dig­ni­fied spir­it of fine art for pic­ture books in Latin Amer­i­can and South­ern Euro­pean lan­guages.

| Passed Away | Asun Bal­zo­la | Asun Bal­zo­la (Wikipedia) |

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🗓️ Other Important Creator Briefings

event	fig­ure	Details/Awards	Wikipedia link
born	Philippe Ness­mann	A pro­lif­ic and out­stand­ing con­tem­po­rary French sci­ence writer and engi­neer (1967). He is excep­tion­al­ly skilled at using a high­ly inter­dis­ci­pli­nary, decon­struc­tive, and visu­al­ly inter­ac­tive lan­guage that breaks away from tra­di­tion­al, rigid sci­ence dog­ma. His land­mark work, *The Great Dis­cov­ery of the Five Sens­es*, which guides chil­dren to ful­ly per­ceive physics and nature through their bod­ies, is a tes­ta­ment to this.Dans tous les sensAmaz­ing achieve­ment 2020 Prix Sor­cières, the high­est award for pop­u­lar sci­ence in France..	Philippe Ness­mann
born	Ralph Hub­bard	An ear­ly and immor­tal Amer­i­can nat­ur­al his­to­ri­an and folk­lorist (1885–1980). He was a pio­neer­ing fig­ure in intro­duc­ing North Amer­i­can Indige­nous cul­ture and wilder­ness sur­vival wis­dom to West­ern soci­ety. His epic mas­ter­piece, *The Strange Man*, imbued with cross-cul­tur­al com­pas­sion and depict­ing the resilience and dig­ni­ty of mar­gin­al­ized chil­dren in adver­si­ty, is a tes­ta­ment to this.Queer Per­son), won New­bery Sil­ver Medal, 1931.	Ralph Hub­bard
born	Carl Hoff­mann	A renowned Ger­man graph­ic artist and mas­ter of real­is­tic illus­tra­tion (1930). He ded­i­cat­ed his life to decon­struct­ing clas­si­cal mythol­o­gy using the most tra­di­tion­al Cen­tral Euro­pean folk art tech­niques of hatch­ing and line draw­ing, exem­pli­fied by his clas­sic lyri­cal epic, *The Hill­side Fairy Tale*.Märchen von den HügelnThe illus­tra­tions, drawn by [author’s name], pos­sess a strong the­atri­cal struc­ture and a sense of spa­tial depth, and won [award/recognition]. 1987 BIB Hon­orary Men­tion.	Carl Hoff­mann