July 16: Today in the History of Children’s Books

⚰️ 1991 – Death: Meidert DeJong

A Dutch-Amer­i­can, immor­tal giant of chil­dren’s lit­er­a­ture (1906–1991). He was a tow­er­ing mas­ter of poly­phon­ic nar­ra­tive in the long his­to­ry of chil­dren’s lit­er­a­ture, and through­out his life, he used extreme­ly refined, restrained and pro­found lan­guage to bring human­is­tic com­pas­sion, chil­dren’s inde­pen­dent will and cross-cul­tur­al sup­port to their phys­i­cal lim­its.

• The high­est hon­or in his­to­ry (Grand Slam): A land­mark achieve­ment 1962 Hans Chris­t­ian Ander­sen Award (HCAA) for Best WriterThe win­ner (he is the first Amer­i­can author to receive this hon­or); he won the award for his mas­ter­piece “The Wheel on the School Roof”. The 1955 New­bery MedalIn addi­tion, he won the New­bery Hon­or Award sev­er­al times and was award­ed the first Nation­al Book Award for Chil­dren’s Lit­er­a­ture.
• An immor­tal mas­ter­piece:
• Canon: The pin­na­cle of chil­dren’s lit­er­a­ture world­wideWheels on the School Roof (The Wheel on the School(Illus­trat­ed by Mau­rice Sendak). It tells the heart­warm­ing his­tor­i­cal epic of six chil­dren in a Dutch fish­ing vil­lage who, under the gen­tle guid­ance of their female teacher, break down prej­u­dices and work togeth­er to find a wood­en wheel to place on the school roof, there­by attract­ing migrat­ing storks back to the vil­lage to nest.
• A mon­u­ment to the his­to­ry of the War of Resis­tance Against Japan:Hous­es for Six­ty Fathers (The House of Six­ty FathersSet against the back­drop of Chi­na’s War of Resis­tance against Japan, the book uses the most real­is­tic, stark, and unvar­nished lan­guage to tell the mov­ing epic of a Chi­nese boy named Tian­bao who, fac­ing the loss of his home and the smoke of war, wan­ders with his piglet and is even­tu­al­ly tak­en in by a group of Amer­i­can pilots (six­ty “fathers”) who are build­ing an air­port and sent home. It upholds the moral high ground of war real­ism with great dig­ni­ty.
• Award-win­ning mas­ter­pieces:A Jour­ney Through Mint Street (Jour­ney from Pep­per­mint Street)。

| Passed Away | Mei­dert DeJong | Mein­dert DeJong (Wikipedia) |

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🎂 1927 – Born: Shirley Hughes

An immor­tal British female graph­ic artist, illus­tra­tor, and recip­i­ent of the Order of the British Empire (CBE) (1927–2022). She was the “Pope of Warm and Touch­ing Aes­thet­ics” who stood tall in the his­to­ry of Eng­lish pop­u­lar lit­er­a­ture and ear­ly child­hood emo­tion­al edu­ca­tion in the sec­ond half of the 20th cen­tu­ry.

• The high­est Grand Slam hon­or: She has won the Kate Green­away Medal twice. The win­ner (1977, 2003); his mas­ter­piece “Chic” was vot­ed by read­ers world­wide as one of the “Top Ten Most Beloved Mas­ter­pieces of the Kate Green­away Medal 50th Anniver­sary”.
• Time­less visu­al clas­sics:
• The UK’s most beloved pic­ture book:Chase the Dog (Dog­gerWith her incred­i­bly gen­tle water­col­ors, imbued with the rough, grainy tex­ture of old-fash­ioned prints, Hugh­es chron­i­cled the sto­ry of a lit­tle boy who lost his beloved toy dog, Archie, and how his sis­ter self­less­ly trad­ed it for him with her own prize. She cap­tured the most authen­tic and hid­den emo­tion­al depen­dence in chil­dren, using her brush to defend the warmth of every­day com­pan­ion­ship.
• A retro Cin­derel­la sto­ry from the 1920s:Ella’s Big Chance (Ella’s Big Chance)。
• Core Ever­green Canon:The Alphi series of pic­ture books (AlfieHer Alfie has messy hair and rosy cheeks, and the whole page is filled with the warm and cozy atmos­phere of a clas­sic British town, com­plete­ly bid­ding farewell to the rigid and indoc­tri­nat­ed green­house.

| Birth | Shirley Hugh­es | Shirley Hugh­es (Wikipedia) |

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⚰️ 2021 — Passed away: Masamoto Nasu

Japan’s immor­tal nation­al trea­sure-lev­el chil­dren’s real­ist lit­er­a­ture mas­ter and paci­fist fight­er (1942–2021). He was one of the most prin­ci­pled stan­dard-bear­ers of the gold­en age of chil­dren’s lit­er­a­ture in East Asia after the war. As a sur­vivor of the Hiroshi­ma atom­ic bomb­ing, he spent his life decon­struct­ing war with extreme­ly steely calm­ness and soci­o­log­i­cal crit­i­cism, defend­ing the ratio­nal­i­ty and dig­ni­ty of child­hood.

• A mas­ter­piece that will last for­ev­er: The Live­ly Trio Series (Zukoke San­nin-gumiThe series, con­sist­ing of 50 vol­umes, sold tens of mil­lions of copies and was adapt­ed into well-known films, tele­vi­sion series, and ani­mat­ed films.
• Non-fic­tion his­tor­i­cal reflec­tions on clas­sics: The Child Who Folds Paper Cranes (Chil­dren of the Paper Crane)、Hiroshi­ma Cried (Hiroshi­ma Wept)。
• Lit­er­ary sta­tus: Masa­mi Nasu com­plete­ly shat­tered the syco­phan­tic and false­ly sweet indoc­tri­na­tion preva­lent in Japan­ese chil­dren’s books at the time. His “The Three Mus­ke­teers” estab­lished chil­dren’s agency in resist­ing soci­etal prej­u­dice through the hilar­i­ous dai­ly lives and adven­tur­ous man­hunts of three ordi­nary boys with vast­ly dif­fer­ent per­son­al­i­ties and even flaws in a small town. His “The Child Who Origa­mi Cranes,” with its stark, unvar­nished, and poignant doc­u­men­tary style, record­ed the his­tor­i­cal truth of Sasa­ki Sadako, a girl who trag­i­cal­ly died from nuclear radi­a­tion, and her origa­mi cranes, thus pro­vid­ing teenagers with a dig­ni­fied and endur­ing spir­i­tu­al shield to reflect on war and uphold order.

| Passed away | Masamo­to Nasu | Masamo­to Nasu (Wikipedia) |

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🎂 1922 – Born: Eve Titus

A renowned Amer­i­can female chil­dren’s lit­er­a­ture writer, author of clas­sic detec­tive and anthro­po­mor­phic ani­mal nov­els (1922–2002). She was a giant of the late 20th cen­tu­ry in the his­to­ry of Amer­i­can chil­dren’s pop­u­lar lit­er­a­ture, per­fect­ly blend­ing “clas­si­cal Eng­lish and French style, rig­or­ous detec­tive deduc­tion, and great dis­cov­er­ies of ear­ly child­hood intel­li­gence”.

• Time­less clas­sics for chil­dren’s detec­tive sto­ries: The Mouse Detec­tive Agency series (Basil of Bak­er StreetIt was lat­er adapt­ed by Dis­ney into the clas­sic film “King Kiss”. The Great Mouse Detec­tive).
• Calde­cott Medal Win­ner: Ana­tole, the French mouse cheese taster series (Ana­toleAmong them, his rep­re­sen­ta­tive works, “The Smartest Mouse in the World” and “The Bravest Mouse in the World,” won awards twice. Calde­cott Hon­or(Illus­tra­tion by Paul Gal­done)
• Lit­er­ary qual­i­ties: Titus is excep­tion­al­ly adept at con­struct­ing grand log­i­cal panora­mas with­in extreme­ly small micro­scop­ic spaces. In “The Mouse Detec­tive Agency,” she cre­ates the gen­tle­man­ly mouse Basil, who lives in the base­ment of Holmes’ house and is equal­ly ratio­nal and log­i­cal, guid­ing young read­ers to devel­op a crit­i­cal mind­set that ratio­nal­ly exam­ines the world through close obser­va­tion of details.

| Birth | Eve Titus | Eve Titus (Wikipedia) |

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🎂 Born 1952: Richard Egielski

An immor­tal Amer­i­can graph­ic artist, mas­ter of fine art pic­ture books, and book design­er (1952). He was a visu­al mas­ter of the late 20th cen­tu­ry, pos­sess­ing the most mod­ern graph­ic col­lage ten­sion and retro archi­tec­tur­al aes­thet­ics in the Unit­ed States.

• Supreme hon­or and an immor­tal mas­ter­piece: With the clas­sic fan­ta­sy social real­ism mas­ter­piece “Hey, Al”, he suc­cess­ful­ly reached the top and won the award. 1987 Calde­cott MedalHis mas­ter­piece, “What Hap­pened in Pin­sk,” won a stun­ning award. Plaque Award, 1985 Bratisla­va Inter­na­tion­al Bien­ni­al of Illus­tra­tions (BIB).
• Award-win­ning rep­re­sen­ta­tive works: Hey, Al! (Hey, Al(Author: Arthur Yorinks) The core con­cept of the ever­green clas­sic *The Bath­tub Man* (The Tub Peo­ple(By Pam Con­rad)
• Con­tri­bu­tions to visu­al arts: Egilsky com­plete­ly over­turned the rigid didac­tic par­a­digm of ear­ly chil­dren’s books. In “Hey, Al,” he inno­v­a­tive­ly stitched togeth­er urban real­ism and a mag­i­cal par­adise, using extreme­ly calm and firm hand-etched lines and large areas of high­ly sat­u­rat­ed oil paint to bring to life Al, a jan­i­tor liv­ing in a cramped apart­ment, reflect­ing on greed and the truth of life with his pet dog. He endowed chil­dren’s pic­ture books with the high­est visu­al intel­lec­tu­al dig­ni­ty through ratio­nal spa­tial decon­struc­tion.

| Birth | Richard Egiel­s­ki | Richard Egiel­s­ki (Wikipedia) |

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🗓️ Parallel briefings from other award-winning creators

event	fig­ure	Details/Awards	Wikipedia/Data Links
born	Arthur Bowie Chris­man	An immor­tal Amer­i­can his­to­ri­an of the ear­ly 20th cen­tu­ry and a mas­ter of col­lect­ing and com­pil­ing Chi­nese folk tales (1889–153). With his pro­found knowl­edge of Chi­nese folk­lore lit­er­a­ture, he per­fect­ly blend­ed tra­di­tion­al Chi­nese mythol­o­gy with a humor­ous sto­ry­telling style, cul­mi­nat­ing in his mon­u­men­tal his­tor­i­cal clas­sic, *The Chi­nese Sea God*.Shen of the SeaHe reached the top and won the cham­pi­onship. The 1926 New­bery Medal.	Arthur Bowie Chris­man (Wikipedia)
Death	Charles Hawes	A pio­neer of ear­ly Amer­i­can his­tor­i­cal adven­ture and mar­itime non­fic­tion real­ism (1889–1923), a giant of the hard-boiled gen­er­a­tion. His epic mas­ter­piece, *The Dark Guard*, a 17th-cen­tu­ry tale of hunts and pirate espi­onage, was writ­ten specif­i­cal­ly to instill in young peo­ple nav­i­gat­ing a time of upheaval the spir­it of inde­pen­dent crafts­men.The Dark Frigate), won the cham­pi­onship in one fell swoop The 1924 New­bery Medal.	Charles Board­man Hawes (Wikipedia)
Death	Hilaire Bel­loc	The immor­tal essay­ist, polit­i­cal thinker, and poet of the Victorian/Edwardian era in Eng­land (1870–1953). (Note: His birth­day was record­ed on July 27th, and today is the anniver­sary of this skele­tal giant’s death.) His time­less cau­tion­ary tales, “Chil­dren’s Warn­ing Sto­ries,” which are full of medieval dark humor, thor­ough­ly decon­struct the false child­hood shel­ter of the time, and tell ten sto­ries of chil­dren fac­ing cru­el pun­ish­ment for var­i­ous strange bad habits, are includ­ed in “1001 Chil­dren’s Books.”	Hilaire Bel­loc (Wikipedia)
Death	Boris Artzy­bash­eff	A Russ­ian-Amer­i­can pio­neer of graph­ic visu­al art and a mas­ter of sur­re­al­ist por­trai­ture (1899–1965). He served for many years as the cov­er artist for Time mag­a­zine, and his clas­sic mas­ter­piece, *Sev­en Simons*, which employed medieval poly­phon­ic pen-and-ink hatch­ing and metic­u­lous geo­met­ric opti­cal illu­sions to reshape tra­di­tion­al Slav­ic his­tor­i­cal mythol­o­gy, is a tes­ta­ment to this.Sev­en Sime­ons), and won in one fell swoop The inau­gur­al Calde­cott Hon­or, award­ed in 1938..	Boris Artzy­bash­eff (Wikipedia)
born	Arnold Adoff	A dis­tin­guished African Amer­i­can poet and chil­dren’s lit­er­a­ture edi­tor of the 20th cen­tu­ry (1935–2021). He ded­i­cat­ed his life to cross-cul­tur­al equal­i­ty and the com­pi­la­tion of lit­er­a­ture. Togeth­er with his wife, Vir­ginia Hamil­ton, a New­bery Medal win­ner, he wrote the time­less chil­dren’s poet­ry clas­sic “Black, Brown, Brown,” which vivid­ly por­trays the dai­ly order and har­mo­ny of inter­ra­cial fam­i­lies across the Unit­ed States and remains a sta­ple of every major library’s must-read list.	Arnold Adoff (Wikipedia)
born	Mar­cus Her­ren­berg­er	A promi­nent con­tem­po­rary Ger­man graph­ic artist and mas­ter of his­tor­i­cal real­ism illus­tra­tion (1955). His first com­plete set of visu­al illus­tra­tions for the post-Cold War his­tor­i­cal non­fic­tion mas­ter­piece, *Between Lenin, Jazz, and Har­ry Lem*, cre­at­ed using extreme­ly stiff, hard­core cross-hatch­ing pen etch­ing and filled with decon­struct­ed, the­atri­cal white space, achieved phe­nom­e­nal suc­cess and won numer­ous awards. Plaque Award, 1993 Bratisla­va Inter­na­tion­al Bien­ni­al of Illus­tra­tions (BIB).	Mar­cus Her­ren­berg­er (Wikipedia)
Death	Ann Her­bert Scott	A promi­nent Amer­i­can female real­ist nov­el­ist of the mid-to-late 20th cen­tu­ry (1926–2018) spe­cial­iz­ing in depict­ing the psy­chol­o­gy of chil­dren. She was excep­tion­al­ly skilled at using high­ly real­is­tic, warm, and anthro­po­log­i­cal­ly empa­thet­ic prose to record life; her mas­ter­piece is *Sam*.SamThrough the sto­ry of a young boy of col­or try­ing to find his own inde­pen­dent rights in the busy fam­i­ly work order, it has been a peren­ni­al rec­om­men­da­tion in major chil­dren’s libraries.	Ann Her­bert Scott (Wiki­da­ta)
Death	Anna-Liisa Haakana	She was an immor­tal Finnish mas­ter of social real­ism lit­er­a­ture for young peo­ple (1937–2024). Through­out her life, she wrote the mas­ter­piece “My One-Legged Friend and Me” with the most inci­sive and unvar­nished soci­o­log­i­cal per­spec­tive, which records the strug­gles of eth­nic minor­i­ty teenagers in the Lap­land wilder­ness of North­ern Europe to uphold their integri­ty and fam­i­ly order amidst class seg­re­ga­tion and extreme sur­vival pain. The work is includ­ed in “1001 Chil­dren’s Books”.	Anna-Liisa Haakana (Wikipedia)