Bridge of Ajia

July 5th: Today in the History of Children’s Books

author:

Ajia

exist

🎂 1943 – Born: Farshid Mesghali

Iran’s immor­tal nation­al trea­sure-lev­el graph­ic artist, illus­tra­tor, and avant-garde ani­ma­tion direc­tor (1943). He was a mon­u­men­tal visu­al mas­ter in the his­to­ry of mod­ern pic­ture books in Asia, and a pio­neer­ing giant who trans­formed the noble clas­si­cal graph­ic com­po­si­tion con­text of the Mid­dle East into avant-garde mod­ernist visu­als.

  • Supreme Inter­na­tion­al Hon­or (World Pin­na­cle): 1974 Hans Chris­t­ian Ander­sen Award (HCAA) for Illus­tra­tionThe win­ner,He is also the first Asian cre­ator in the entire his­to­ry of chil­dren’s lit­er­a­ture to receive this hon­or.With the epic mas­ter­piece “Arash the Archer”, he won the award. Gold­en Apple Award at the 1973 Bratisla­va Inter­na­tion­al Bien­ni­al of Illus­tra­tion (BIB)Her debut work even won an award. The inau­gur­al BIB Hon­orary Men­tion was award­ed in 1969..
  • A time­less mas­ter­piece:
  • Lit­tle Black Fish (The Lit­tle Black Fish / Per­sian Māhī-ye Sīāh‑e Kūchūlū(by Samad Behran­gi): Win­ner of the 1969 BIB Award. The book uses a rough wood­cut print with a strong earthy and grav­el­ly feel and a free­hand rub­bing tech­nique to cre­ate the image of a lit­tle black fish that stub­born­ly adheres to its own ratio­nal­i­ty and swims into the sea to find the truth of life. It is regard­ed as the high­est Canon (mod­el) of crit­i­cal real­ist polit­i­cal alle­go­ry pic­ture books in the world.
  • Award-win­ning epic mas­ter­piece:Arash the Sharp­shoot­er (Arash the Bow­man)。

| Birth | Farshid Mes­ghali | Farshid Mes­ghali (Wikipedia) |

🎂 John Schoenherr, born 1935.

An immor­tal Amer­i­can real­ist graph­ic artist, mas­ter of fine art, and wildlife ecol­o­gist (1935–2010). He was one of the most out­stand­ing and mas­cu­line mas­ters in the his­to­ry of Amer­i­can chil­dren’s visu­al arts in the 20th cen­tu­ry, estab­lish­ing insur­mount­able icons in both the extreme fields of long-form sci­ence fic­tion and lyri­cal pic­ture books for young chil­dren.

  • Supreme hon­or and an immor­tal mas­ter­piece: Suc­cess­ful­ly topped the list and won the award with the ever­green clas­sic “Watch­ing Owls Under the Moon”. 1988 Calde­cott Medal.
  • Visu­al cul­ture influ­ence:
  • Watch­ing Owls Under the Moon (Owl Moon(By Jane Yolen): Schoen­berg­er per­fect­ly cap­tured the silence and cold­ness of a win­ter for­est night, and the warmth of a father and daugh­ter’s com­pan­ion­ship, with his extreme­ly noble, moist, and trans­par­ent water­col­ors. The deep and breath­able blue-black light and shad­ow in his paint­ings, along with the large areas of ori­en­tal free­hand blank space in the snow, have become one of the most stun­ning and unfor­get­table visu­al moments in the his­to­ry of pic­ture books.
  • Sci-fi epic pio­neer­ing:He is Frank Her­bert’s mas­ter­piece of sci­ence fic­tion, Dune.DuneThe orig­i­nal and most author­i­ta­tive first edi­tion illus­tra­torHis hard-edged land­scape draw­ings of the dune plan­et and sand­worms have pro­found­ly influ­enced all sub­se­quent sci­ence fic­tion aes­thet­ics.

| Birth | John Schoen­herr | John Schoen­herr (Wikipedia) |

🎂 Born 1949: Jill Murphy

An immor­tal British female chil­dren’s author and graph­ic illus­tra­tor (1949–2021). She was a high­ly respect­ed female mas­ter of chil­dren’s lit­er­a­ture in post-World War II Britain, a ver­sa­tile woman who bal­anced chil­dren’s inner anx­i­eties with the pow­er of every­day play with an extreme­ly refined writ­ing style.

  • Time­less mas­ter­pieces:
  • The Lit­tle Witch series (Worst Witch series(Pub­lished in 1974): A pop­u­lar school anthol­o­gy that has swept across Europe for half a cen­tu­ry, more than twen­ty years before Har­ry Pot­ter, it estab­lished the visu­al and plot frame­work of the mod­ern “mag­i­cal board­ing school nar­ra­tive”.
  • Ear­ly Cog­ni­tion and Warmth Bible:Final­ly, it’s qui­et. (Peace at Last)、The Ele­phant Emera SeriesIt was includ­ed in “1001 Chil­dren’s Books”.
  • Lit­er­ary qual­i­ties: Mur­phy is excep­tion­al­ly skilled at using del­i­cate pen lines with a strong sense of every­day life and dry humor in his writ­ing. His “Final­ly Qui­et” ten­der­ly address­es the sense of depen­dence and secu­ri­ty that chil­dren devel­op with­in the ordi­nary order of fam­i­ly life through the hilar­i­ous process of an ele­phant father strug­gling to fall asleep at night amidst var­i­ous sub­tle nois­es.

| Birth | Jill Mur­phy | Jill Mur­phy (Wikipedia) |

⚰️ 2022 — Passed away: Binette Schroeder

An immor­tal Ger­man female graph­ic artist, queen of sur­re­al­ist pic­ture books, and book design­er (1939–2022). She is a tow­er­ing fig­ure who brought the aes­thet­ics of pic­ture books in the Ger­man-speak­ing world to the inter­na­tion­al avant-garde fine art stage after the war.

  • Supreme Inter­na­tion­al Hon­ors: The final­ist for the Hans Chris­t­ian Ander­sen Award (HCAA) Illus­tra­tion Award.; won the award for his debut work “Lupin Fairy” Gold­en Apple Award at the 1971 Bratisla­va Inter­na­tion­al Bien­ni­al of Illus­tra­tions (BIB)Lat­er, he won again with the famous nov­el “The Frog Prince”. 1989 BIB Plaque.
  • Immor­tal mas­ter­pieces: Lupine Fairy (Lupinchen)、The Frog Prince (Der Froschkönig), and the high­ly indus­tri­al fan­ta­sy-inspired “Kuchachach: The Strange Sto­ry of the Lit­tle Train” (Ra ta ta tam, the Strange Sto­ry of a Lit­tle Engine)。
  • Visu­al Aes­thet­ics: Schroed­er’s style is both clas­si­cal and mag­i­cal. Deeply influ­enced by Dal­i’s sur­re­al­ism and the light and shad­ow of the clas­si­cal Nether­lan­dish school, she is excep­tion­al­ly skilled at using intri­cate and del­i­cate­ly applied opaque water­col­ors to cre­ate a dream­like, dark, noble, and order­ly Möbius space. Every­thing in her paint­ings is imbued with a mys­te­ri­ous ratio­nal dig­ni­ty, com­plete­ly shat­ter­ing the mediocre green­house atmos­phere of chil­dren’s books.

| Passed Away | Binette Schroed­er | Binette Schroed­er (Wikipedia) |

🎂 Born 1941: Lynley Dodd

Dame Lynn Lee Stu­art Dade (1941), an immor­tal nation­al trea­sure of New Zealand, is a leg­endary female chil­dren’s book author and illus­tra­tor. She is a tow­er­ing fig­ure in the his­to­ry of chil­dren’s pop­u­lar cul­ture and humor­ous sto­ry­telling through­out Ocea­nia and was award­ed the Order of the British Empire (DCNZ).

  • Time­less clas­sics: ““McLary and Friends” series(Rep­re­sen­ta­tive works) Hairy Maclary from Don­ald­son’s Dairy(It was first intro­duced in 1983).
  • Lit­er­ary sta­tus: Her sem­i­nal work is includ­ed in “1001 Chil­dren’s Books.” Dade is excep­tion­al­ly skilled at using high­ly dynam­ic and rhyth­mic poly­phon­ic rhymes, per­fect­ly com­bin­ing them with exquis­ite­ly expres­sive and metic­u­lous­ly detailed ani­mal depic­tions. She brought to life the char­ac­ter of this uncon­ven­tion­al, rule-break­ing, yet fun­da­men­tal­ly right­eous lit­tle black dog, becom­ing a time­less Canon of child­hood explo­ration and the dis­man­tling of prej­u­dices sur­round­ing the ani­mal food chain.

| Birth | Lyn­ley Dodd | Lyn­ley Dodd (Wikipedia) |

⚰️ 1971 – Died: James Ramsey Ullman

A renowned Amer­i­can author, hard­core moun­taineer, and war cor­re­spon­dent (1907–1971). He was a mas­ter of hard-boiled sto­ry­telling in the mid-20th cen­tu­ry, per­fect­ly blend­ing “extreme nature non­fic­tion, high-alti­tude climb­ing archae­ol­o­gy, and the spir­it of young heroes.”

  • High­est Hon­or: He reached the sum­mit and won the award thanks to his time­less moun­taineer­ing epic, “The Flag in the Sky”. New­bery Hon­or, 1955.
  • Immor­tal mas­ter­pieces: Flags in the Sky (Ban­ner in the Sky)。
  • Lit­er­ary con­no­ta­tion: Ull­man per­son­al­ly par­tic­i­pat­ed in one of the ear­li­est human expe­di­tions to Mount Ever­est. His award-win­ning mas­ter­piece, set against the back­drop of the Alps, tells the mag­nif­i­cent sto­ry of 16-year-old Rudy, who defies tra­di­tion and his moth­er’s objec­tions, deter­mined to plant a flag on the precipice of Cas­tle Peak, where his father per­ished. His writ­ing is pow­er­ful and restrained, devoid of sen­ti­men­tal­i­ty, using steely objec­tiv­i­ty to record avalanch­es and crevass­es. Rudy’s deci­sion to for­go the first ascent to save his rival at the last moment, with utmost dig­ni­ty, estab­lish­es for the world the high­est moral stan­dard in chil­dren’s wilder­ness adven­ture lit­er­a­ture.

| Died | James Ram­sey Ull­man | James Ram­sey Ull­man (Wikipedia) |

More Articles