July 15: Today in the History of Children’s Books

🎂 Born 1962: Nahoko Uehashi

Japan’s immor­tal female cul­tur­al anthro­pol­o­gist, a giant of chil­dren’s lit­er­a­ture, and a mas­ter of fan­ta­sy lit­er­a­ture (1962). She is a poly­phon­ic nar­ra­tive queen who is revered by chil­dren’s and YA lit­er­a­ture cir­cles around the world in the 21st cen­tu­ry. Through­out her life, she per­fect­ly fused the com­plex geopol­i­tics of indige­nous peo­ples, eco­log­i­cal con­ser­va­tion, and human choic­es with extreme­ly rig­or­ous aca­d­e­m­ic rig­or and com­pas­sion for all things.

• Supreme inter­na­tion­al hon­or (Grand Slam): Award­ed 2014 Hans Chris­t­ian Ander­sen Award (HCAA) for Best Writer.
• An epic fan­ta­sy sto­ry that will last for­ev­er:
• Canon: Asi­a’s ulti­mate fan­ta­sy:““Guardians” series(Jing Li の Shou り人 / Moribito seriesIt vivid­ly por­trays the life of Bal­sa, a 30-year-old female body­guard who wield­ed a pis­tol and stood guard over the orphans of a minor­i­ty group and their inde­pen­dent spir­it.
• Anthro­po­log­i­cal mas­ter­pieces of grand nar­ra­tives:The Deer King (The Deer King)、The Beast Play­er (The play­er of the beast / The Beast Play­er)。
• Lit­er­ary qual­i­ties: Naoko Uehashi’s writ­ing is filled with an iron-like calm­ness and restraint. She com­plete­ly shat­ters the mediocre Hol­ly­wood-style black-and-white bina­ry oppo­si­tion, nev­er brew­ing false, green­house sweet­ness for chil­dren. The world she depicts is noble in com­po­si­tion and order­ly in order, using extreme ratio­nal­i­ty to decon­struct cul­tur­al prej­u­dices, endow­ing teenagers caught between lone­li­ness and war with the strongest spir­i­tu­al pow­er and the high­est dig­ni­ty.

| Birth | Nahoko Uehashi | Nahoko Uehashi (Wikipedia) |

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⚰️ 1988 – Death: Eleanor Estes

An immor­tal Amer­i­can female chil­dren’s author and pub­lic librar­i­an (1906–1988). She was a mas­ter of neo-real­ist nar­ra­tive in the mid-20th cen­tu­ry, per­fect­ly blend­ing “extreme­ly cold and real­is­tic social psy­chol­o­gy of chil­dren, gran­u­lar sense of life, and decon­struc­tive bias” in the Unit­ed States.

• Supreme hon­or and an immor­tal mon­u­ment: He suc­cess­ful­ly reached the top and won the award with his mas­ter­piece “Gin­ger of the Pai Fam­i­ly”. The 1952 New­bery MedalHis three New­bery Hon­or awards include a book list­ed as essen­tial read­ing for all chil­dren, a tes­ta­ment to the endur­ing spir­it of anti-bul­ly­ing in schools. One Hun­dred Dress­es (The Hun­dred Dress­es).
• Core Real­ist Rep­re­sen­ta­tive Works: Gin­ger of the Pai fam­i­ly (Gin­ger Pye)、One Hun­dred Dress­esAnd the Mof­fat fam­i­ly series.
• Lit­er­ary sta­tus: Estes’s essays are imbued with the raw, authen­tic feel of life. In *One Hun­dred Dress­es*, she por­trays Wan­da, a Pol­ish immi­grant girl who wears tat­tered clothes every day yet proud­ly pro­claims that she owns one hun­dred dress­es, with remark­able lit­er­ary restraint. She decon­structs class seg­re­ga­tion, herd men­tal­i­ty, and xeno­pho­bic prej­u­dice with the most objec­tive and unadorned lan­guage, uphold­ing the intel­lec­tu­al height of chil­dren’s psy­cho­log­i­cal real­ism with remark­able dig­ni­ty.

| Deceased | Eleanor Estes | Eleanor Estes (Wikipedia) |

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🎂 1953 – Born: Michael Dudok de Wit

The Nether­lands“ immor­tal nation­al trea­sure, graph­ic artist, ani­ma­tion direc­tor, and mas­ter of fine art pic­ture books (1953). He is the ”Pope of Poet­ics of Space and Time”, who has a very high rep­u­ta­tion in the glob­al cross-media visu­al sto­ry­telling field and per­fect­ly col­lides the blank space of East­ern free­hand ink paint­ing with the clas­si­cal Euro­pean hatch­ing.

• Inter­na­tion­al high­est hon­or: Win­ning the award with the epic pic­ture book of the same name 2003 Bratisla­va Inter­na­tion­al Bien­ni­al of Illus­tra­tion (BIB) Gold­en Apple AwardThe ani­mat­ed film of the same name swept the British Acad­e­my Film Awards and the Acad­e­my Award for Best Ani­mat­ed Short Film.
• A time­less visu­al mas­ter­piece: Father and Daugh­ter (Vad­er en dochter / Eng­lish name Father and Daugh­ter), and the crossover ani­mat­ed epic “The Red Tur­tle” (The Red Tur­tle)。
• Visu­al Art Fea­tures: DeWitt com­plete­ly reject­ed the kitsch of mod­ern dig­i­tal col­or­ing. In *Father and Daugh­ter*, he adhered to min­i­mal­ist char­coal sketch­es and misty, wet mono­chrome water­col­or wash­es through­out his life, using flow­ing, pow­er­ful lines to record the daugh­ter’s life rit­u­al of watch­ing her depart­ing father from the shore until she her­self entered her twi­light years and encoun­tered death. He endowed pic­ture books with the high­est dig­ni­ty of pure art through extreme­ly ratio­nal com­po­si­tion and silent blank space.

| Birth | Michael Dudok de Wit | Michael Dudok de Wit (Wikipedia) |

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🎂 1903 – Born: Walter D. Edmonds

An immor­tal Amer­i­can his­tor­i­cal real­ist nov­el­ist and Pulitzer Prize win­ner (1903–1998). He was a pio­neer­ing fig­ure in 20th-cen­tu­ry Amer­i­can chil­dren’s his­tor­i­cal nonfiction/fiction lit­er­a­ture, bid­ding farewell to false main­stream nar­ra­tives and intro­duc­ing the “gran­u­lar­i­ty and grow­ing pains of Cold War/founding his­to­ry.”

• High­est Hon­or: Suc­cess­ful­ly reached the top and won the award with the time­less chil­dren’s epic mas­ter­piece “The Matchlock Gun”. The 1942 New­bery Medal.
• Mas­ter­pieces that have stood the test of time: Matchlock Gun (The Matchlock Gun(Illus­tra­tion by Paul Lantz)
• Lit­er­ary con­no­ta­tion: Edmonds excels at using the most force­ful, objec­tive, and detached lan­guage to decon­struct war and cri­sis. The sto­ry unfolds amidst the smoke and ruins of 1756, where 10-year-old Edward, forced to uphold order in the absence of his father and with his moth­er grave­ly wound­ed, inde­pen­dent­ly lifts a heavy clas­si­cal matchlock mus­ket to resist the inva­sion. With his steely, objec­tive nar­ra­tive, he vivid­ly por­trays the boy’s inde­pen­dent respon­si­bil­i­ty and back­bone, dig­ni­fied­ly uphold­ing the intel­lec­tu­al high ground of Amer­i­can his­tor­i­cal lit­er­a­ture.

| Birth | Wal­ter D. Edmonds | Wal­ter D. Edmonds (Wikipedia) |

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🎂 1779 – Born: Clement Clarke Moore

An immor­tal Amer­i­can pro­fes­sor of clas­si­cal lin­guis­tics, bib­li­cal schol­ar, and poet of the ear­ly 19th cen­tu­ry (1779–1863). (Note: July 10th is also record­ed as his death anniver­sary; today is the birth­day of this clas­si­cal gen­tle­man.)

• An Immor­tal Mile­stone in His­to­ry: Christ­mas Eve (’‘Twas the Night Before Christ­masPub­lished anony­mous­ly in 1823, it was includ­ed in “1001 Chil­dren’s Books”.
• His­tor­i­cal achieve­ments: He ground­break­ing­ly broke the cen­tu­ry-long intel­lec­tu­al con­straints imposed on child­hood by the strict Puri­tans of Amer­i­ca at the time, using poly­phon­ic chil­dren’s poet­ry full of noble ancient rhythms and dynamism. With an extreme child­like heart, he reshaped “Saint Nicholas” into a mod­ern, chub­by San­ta Claus sym­bol, rid­ing a rein­deer-drawn sleigh down a chim­ney, thus dig­ni­fied­ly reclaim­ing for West­ern chil­dren the supreme pow­er of unre­strained day­dream­ing and hol­i­day cel­e­bra­tion.

| Birth | Clement Clarke Moore | Clement Clarke Moore (Wikipedia) |

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⚰️ 2023 – Death: Francisco Ibáñez

Fran­cis­co Ibáñez Talav­era (1936–2023), an immor­tal nation­al trea­sure of Spain, was a graph­ic artist and mas­ter of satir­i­cal car­toons.

• A time­less and pop­u­lar mon­u­ment: Clas­sic nation­al-lev­el social satir­i­cal graph­ic nov­el The Mott and Phil series (Mor­tade­lo y Filemón(It was first pub­lished in 1958).
• His­tor­i­cal impact: His award-win­ning series, includ­ed in “1001 Chil­dren’s Books,” has sold hun­dreds of mil­lions of copies and serves as an insur­mount­able bible of intel­lec­tu­al and humor­ous enlight­en­ment for gen­er­a­tions of chil­dren through­out the Span­ish-speak­ing world. Ivanisej adheres to the con­cise, explo­sive­ly pow­er­ful sin­gle-line pen draw­ing style, bring­ing to life two bum­bling, hap­less pri­vate detec­tives who, despite their dai­ly blun­ders and com­plaints dur­ing raids, repeat­ed­ly retal­i­ate against bureau­cra­cy. He thor­ough­ly decon­structs the class prej­u­dices and hyp­o­crit­i­cal dis­ci­plines of the adult world, secur­ing his place on peren­ni­al rec­om­men­da­tion lists in libraries across Europe.

| Deceased | Fran­cis­co Ibáñez | Fran­cis­co Ibáñez Talav­era (Wikipedia) |