July 13: Today in the History of Children’s Books

🎂 1918 – Born: Marcia Brown

An immor­tal Amer­i­can graph­ic artist, mas­ter of print­mak­ing, and the revered “Queen of a Thou­sand Faces” (1918–2015) in the his­to­ry of world pic­ture book evo­lu­tion. He was a lead­ing fig­ure of the gold­en age of Amer­i­can chil­dren’s visu­al lit­er­a­ture, and a recip­i­ent of the Calde­cott Medal, a pres­ti­gious award rec­og­nized world­wide since its incep­tion.The high­est record hold­er that remains unbro­ken to this day.

• The high­est Grand Slam hon­or (record hold­er): 1992 Chil­dren’s Lit­er­a­ture Her­itage Award (CLLA) Life­time Achieve­ment Award Recip­i­ent;Three-time Calde­cott Medal win­ner,Six-time Calde­cott Hon­or Award win­nerHe won a total of 9 Calde­cott Awards in his life­time, rank­ing first in his­to­ry.
• An immor­tal mas­ter­piece:
• Gold Medal Win­ner, 1955 Cin­derel­la (Cin­derel­la): Using the most ele­gant and refined French clas­si­cal soft pas­tel col­ors, it com­plete­ly rev­o­lu­tion­ized the visu­al par­a­digm of folk tales.
• Gold Medal Win­ner, 1962 Once upon a time, there was a mouse… (Once a MouseThe book uses extreme­ly vig­or­ous two-col­or wood­cut prints with a tex­ture full of the grain­i­ness of heavy indus­tri­al his­to­ry and philo­soph­i­cal con­tem­pla­tion to explore the ulti­mate phi­los­o­phy of pow­er and grat­i­tude.
• Gold Medal Win­ner, 1983 “shad­ow” (Shad­ow): This crossover uses an extreme­ly bold, expres­sive African-style wood­cut sil­hou­ette mon­tage.
• Core Ever­green Canon:Stone Soup (Stone Soup)、Three Goats Gruff.

| Birth | Mar­cia Brown | Mar­cia Brown (Wikipedia) |

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🎂 1923 – Born: Ashley Bryan

An immor­tal African Amer­i­can graph­ic artist, folk music col­lec­tor, and prose poet (1923–2022). He is a tow­er­ing spir­i­tu­al icon in the his­to­ry of Amer­i­can minor­i­ty lit­er­a­ture, ded­i­cat­ing his life to oppos­ing false preach­ing and racial stereo­types.

• The high­est Grand Slam hon­or: 2009 Chil­dren’s Lit­er­a­ture Her­itage Award (CLLA) Life­time Achieve­ment Award Recip­i­ent; Hon­orary Artist of the Eric Car­le Muse­um; Award­ed for his epic work “Lib­er­ty Belongs to Me” 2017 New­bery Hon­orCori­ta Scott King Book Award.
• An immor­tal mon­u­ment to his­to­ry: Free­dom Belongs to Me (Free­dom Over Me), paper-cut­ting col­lage clas­sic “Beau­ti­ful Black­bird” (Beau­ti­ful Black­bird)。
• Lit­er­ary and his­tor­i­cal char­ac­ter­is­tics: Bri­an’s writ­ing is imbued with an iron-like calm­ness, lit­er­ary restraint, and noble human com­pas­sion. In *Lib­er­ty Belongs to Me*, he inno­v­a­tive­ly uti­lizes his­tor­i­cal doc­u­ments from the 1828 auc­tion and liq­ui­da­tion of prop­er­ty of enslaved Black peo­ple, trans­form­ing the names of those of peo­ple of col­or, who were legal­ly rigid­ly cat­e­go­rized as “goods and hors­es,” into a poly­phon­ic long poem. He uses grand, vibrant water­col­ors and col­lage-like lines to vivid­ly depict the faces, dreams, and inner auton­o­my of each per­se­cut­ed soul, uphold­ing the intel­lec­tu­al height of chil­dren’s his­tor­i­cal non­fic­tion with great dig­ni­ty.

| Birth | Ash­ley Bryan | Ash­ley Bryan (Wikipedia) |

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⚰️ 2013 – Death: Marc Simont

Paris-Amer­i­can illus­tra­tor, mas­ter of fine art, and satir­i­cal car­toon­ist (1915–2013). He was a visu­al mas­ter of the mid-to-late 20th cen­tu­ry in the Unit­ed States, renowned for his cap­ti­vat­ing decon­struc­tion of graph­ic space and his mas­ter­ful use of light and shad­ow.

• Supreme hon­or and an immor­tal mas­ter­piece: With the clas­sic chil­dren’s eco­log­i­cal aes­thet­ic edu­ca­tion mas­ter­piece “Trees Are Great”, it suc­cess­ful­ly reached the top and won the award. 1957 Calde­cott MedalLat­er, he won anoth­er award with his self-writ­ten and self-illus­trat­ed mas­ter­piece of anthro­po­log­i­cal con­cern, “Stray Dogs”. 2002 Calde­cott Hon­or.
• A time­less visu­al clas­sic: Good Trees (A Tree Is Nice(By Jan­ice May Udry)Stray Dogs (The Stray Dog)。
• Con­tri­bu­tions to visu­al aes­thet­ics: Simon com­plete­ly over­turned the rigid and com­plex col­or­ing tech­niques of ear­ly tra­di­tion­al chil­dren’s books. He inno­v­a­tive­ly used high­ly expres­sive, airy wet-on-wet water­col­ors through­out the book to vivid­ly depict the panora­ma of sun­light fil­ter­ing through leaves and dap­pling the grass, cap­tur­ing the spir­it of all things. He used calm, strong, and inno­cent­ly order­ly sin­gle-line sketch­es to uphold the noble seri­ous­ness of chil­dren’s nature lit­er­a­cy books.

| Passed Away | Marc Simont | Marc Simont (Wikipedia) |

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🎂 Born 1965: Anita Jeram

A dis­tin­guished British female graph­ic illus­tra­tor and pic­ture book author (1965). She is the undis­put­ed visu­al rep­re­sen­ta­tive of “human­i­ty’s first ten­der­ness” in the long his­to­ry of Eng­lish pop­u­lar lit­er­a­ture and ear­ly child­hood emo­tion­al enlight­en­ment at the end of the 20th cen­tu­ry.

• An endur­ing and time­less supreme mod­el: Guess How Much I Love You (Guess How Much I Love You(By Sam McBrat­ney) This is the world’s best-sell­ing pic­ture book in his­to­ry, trans­lat­ed into dozens of lan­guages, and a uni­ver­sal­ly acclaimed Canon book..
• Inter­na­tion­al Hon­ors: Win­ner of the French Witch Award and includ­ed in “1001 Chil­dren’s Books,” Jel­lang com­plete­ly aban­doned the syco­phan­tic and child­ish car­toon style in this mas­ter­piece. She used only the most gen­tle, clas­si­cal­ly ele­gant British water­col­ors of warm browns and light greens, per­fect­ly blend­ing them with exquis­ite­ly refined pen lines. She vivid­ly depict­ed the psy­cho­log­i­cal game of the large and small maroon rab­bits mea­sur­ing the extent of love with their bod­ies under the moon­light, estab­lish­ing the high­est par­a­digm for chil­dren’s psy­cho­log­i­cal reflec­tion books with remark­able ratio­nal­i­ty and a keen sense of pro­por­tion.

| Birth | Ani­ta Jer­am | Ani­ta Jer­am (Wikipedia) |

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🎂 Born 1937: Susumu Shingu

A Japan­ese nation­al trea­sure-lev­el con­tem­po­rary kinet­ic sculp­tor, graph­ic artist, and mas­ter of lyri­cal pic­ture books depict­ing nature (1937). He is a rare fig­ure in the Asian pic­ture book world, a “Pope of Spa­tial Poet­ry” who per­fect­ly blends mod­ern heavy indus­tri­al mechan­i­cal engi­neer­ing design with the bound­less phe­no­log­i­cal breath of nature.

• Time­less Non-Fic­tion Clas­sics: “straw­ber­ry” (Straw­ber­ries)、The Jour­ney of the Wind (Wind Plan­et), and the ethe­re­al mas­ter­piece “Lit­tle Pond” (Lit­tle Pond)。
• Visu­al Art Fea­tures: Shin­gu Susumu, a renowned inter­na­tion­al pub­lic art mas­ter, has had his archi­tec­tur­al instal­la­tions cap­ti­vat­ing audi­ences world­wide. He has now ven­tured into chil­dren’s pic­ture books, com­plete­ly shat­ter­ing the con­ven­tion­al nar­ra­tive par­a­digm. In “Straw­ber­ry” and “The Jour­ney of the Wind,” he stun­ning­ly employs high­ly sat­u­rat­ed, cool oil paint blocks and ample sub­con­scious white space, using micro­scop­ic per­spec­tive to record the nat­ur­al rit­u­al of a straw­ber­ry cling­ing to its life order under win­ter snow, await­ing the spring thun­der. This ratio­nal, phys­i­cal gaze imbues envi­ron­men­tal con­ser­va­tion lit­er­a­ture with the high­est dig­ni­ty of life.

| Birth | Susumu Shin­gu | Susumu Shin­gu (Wikipedia) |

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🎂 Born 1930: Yutaka Sugita

A leg­endary Japan­ese graph­ic artist, col­or the­o­ry pro­fes­sor, and pic­ture book mas­ter of the mid-to-late 20th cen­tu­ry (1930–2017). He was a tow­er­ing fig­ure who brought post­war East Asian mod­ern pic­ture book aes­thet­ics to the Euro­pean and inter­na­tion­al fine art stage.

• Time­less visu­al clas­sics: The True Trea­sure (たからもの)、My Amaz­ing Lit­tle Friend (ぼくのあいつ)、I am who I am. (ぼくのかお), and the lyri­cal mas­ter­piece “The Chair of Hap­pi­ness” (しあわせのいす)。
• Achieve­ments in Visu­al Aes­thet­ics: Yuta­ka Sug­i­ta’s ground­break­ing work employs a retro tex­ture achieved through a per­fect com­bi­na­tion of intri­cate hand-dyed paper, fres­co print­ing, and thick, opaque water­col­or wash­es. His owls, black cats, and chil­dren roam with­in a gran­u­lar space imbued with the mag­i­cal qual­i­ties of Pop Art. He decon­structs the rigid­i­ty of ear­ly per­cep­tions with an excep­tion­al­ly high degree of artis­tic seri­ous­ness, and his visu­al art enjoys a high rep­u­ta­tion through­out the Euro­pean book indus­try.

| Birth | Yuta­ka Sugi­ta | Yuta­ka Sugi­ta (Benez­it) |

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🗓️ Parallel briefings from other award-winning creators

event	fig­ure	Details/Awards	Wikipedia/Data Links
born	Steve Sheinkin	A dis­tin­guished con­tem­po­rary Amer­i­can real­ist his­to­ri­an and a mas­ter of non-fic­tion fic­tion for chil­dren (1968). Through­out his life, he craft­ed his works with an almost obses­sive aca­d­e­m­ic rig­or, reveal­ing the raw, unvar­nished real­i­ties of life. His time­less mas­ter­piece, *Bombs: The Race to Make and Steal the World’s Most Dan­ger­ous Weapon*, a work that recounts the transna­tion­al espi­onage behind the glob­al strug­gle over the atom­ic bomb and the clash of rea­son between young and hard­ened pro­tag­o­nists, achieved phe­nom­e­nal suc­cess and won numer­ous awards. 2013 New­bery Hon­orThe final selec­tion for the Nation­al Book Awards.	Steve Sheinkin (Wikipedia)
born	Gus­ta­vo Rosemf­fet	Gusti, an immor­tal graph­ic artist of Argen­tine descent from Spain and a pio­neer­ing mas­ter of art edu­ca­tion for peo­ple of col­or and dis­abled chil­dren (1963), pen name Gusti. He ded­i­cat­ed his life to the ancient Latin Amer­i­can folk art of rough hatch­ing and col­lage. His land­mark pic­ture book, *Pip and the Blue*, a work that decon­structs clas­si­cal prej­u­dices and vivid­ly por­trays the dig­ni­ty of minor­i­ty youth, is a tes­ta­ment to this.Pip i el col­or blau), and won the cham­pi­onship. Gold­en Apple Award at the 1989 Bratisla­va Inter­na­tion­al Bien­ni­al of Illus­tra­tion (BIB).	Gusti (Ric­o­chet)
born	Do van Ranst	A renowned Bel­gian writer of social real­ism focus­ing on youth (1974). He used pow­er­ful soci­o­log­i­cal real­ism to record the upheavals and exis­ten­tial anx­i­eties of grass­roots fam­i­lies in con­tem­po­rary Europe. His epic mas­ter­piece, *My Father Said We Were Sav­ing Lives*, vivid­ly por­trays the inter­gen­er­a­tional resilience and reflec­tion of under­priv­i­leged youth fac­ing a bro­ken life.Wir ret­ten Leben, sagt mein VaterAmaz­ing achieve­ments 2007 DJLP (Ger­man Youth Lit­er­a­ture Prize) Grand Prize for Chil­dren’s Books.	Do van Ranst (Wikipedia)
born	Eliz­a­beth Miller, Cleve­land	A renowned Amer­i­can female cross-cul­tur­al his­tor­i­cal real­ist nov­el­ist of the ear­ly 20th cen­tu­ry (1889–1936). Draw­ing upon pro­found anthro­po­log­i­cal and folk­loric research, she wrote the immor­tal mas­ter­piece *Plains in Alba­nia*, a nov­el that tells the sto­ry of a young girl from the Balka­ns’ out­skirts who dis­plays aston­ish­ing resilience in uphold­ing fam­i­ly order amidst the flames of war. It won numer­ous awards. New­bery Hon­or, 1930.	Eliz­a­beth Cleve­land Miller (Wikipedia)
born	Stephen Spurri­er	A leg­endary British Victorian/Edwardian clas­si­cal real­ist oil painter and a Fel­low of the Roy­al Acad­e­my of Arts (1878–1961). Through­out his life, he adhered to the extreme­ly robust, hard-core British pen-etched hatch­ing and metic­u­lous pla­nar com­po­si­tion, exem­pli­fied by his mas­ter­piece, the epic chil­dren’s cir­cus book *The Cir­cus is Com­ing*.The Cir­cus Is Com­ingThe first edi­tion visu­als, drawn by him, were includ­ed in “1001 Chil­dren’s Books”.	Stephen Spurri­er (Wikipedia)