Bridge of Ajia

August 10: Today in the History of Children’s Books

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🎂 Born 1938: Tony Ross

British chil­dren’s pic­ture book author and illus­tra­tor (1938). He is known for his extreme­ly exag­ger­at­ed and humor­ous lines, high­ly sat­u­rat­ed water­col­or flat wash­es, and wit­ty plots that sub­vert tra­di­tion­al log­ic. He cre­at­ed and illus­trat­ed hun­dreds of works through­out his life.

  • Top Award and Rep­re­sen­ta­tive Works:
  • I’m com­ing to get you! (Ich komm dich holen! / Eng­lish name I’m com­ing to get you!(1984) — Award 1986 Ger­man Youth Lit­er­a­ture Prize (DJLP) Pic­ture Book AwardThe sto­ry tells of a colos­sal mon­ster liv­ing on a dis­tant plan­et that embarks on a mas­sive galaxy-cross­ing jour­ney to Earth in order to devour a young boy. Just as the mon­ster, yelling “I’m com­ing to get you!” rush­es into the boy’s room, the read­er dis­cov­ers that the mon­ster is actu­al­ly only the size of a fly, and the boy eas­i­ly defus­es the dan­ger by press­ing it down. The work humor­ous­ly decon­structs chil­dren’s inner fear of “mon­sters of the night.”
  • Let’s wash our hands! (Wash your hands!— A famous rep­re­sen­ta­tive work of the “Lit­tle Princess” series, it uses a light­heart­ed and humor­ous touch to edu­cate young chil­dren about hygiene habits by show­ing how the lit­tle princess finds wash­ing hands too trou­ble­some, but then takes the ini­tia­tive to wash her hands after learn­ing about hygiene knowl­edge.
  • I Hate School (I Hate School— List­ed in “1001 Chil­dren’s Books”, it tells the sto­ry of chil­dren’s humor­ous com­plaints about school order and their psy­cho­log­i­cal adap­ta­tion.
  • Rep­re­sen­ta­tive anti-war fables also include “An Ant with a Name” (An Anty-War Sto­ry).

| Birth | Tony Ross | Tony Ross (Wikipedia) |

🎂 Born in 1973: LeUyen Pham

Viet­namese-Amer­i­can pic­ture book author and illus­tra­tor (1973). She was born in Ho Chi Minh City, Viet­nam, and immi­grat­ed to the Unit­ed States with her par­ents at a young age. Her works fea­ture live­ly and expres­sive char­ac­ters with extreme­ly vivid expres­sions, and she excels at por­tray­ing the warmth of mul­ti­cul­tur­al­ism and the vital­i­ty of dai­ly life.

  • Top Award and Rep­re­sen­ta­tive Works:
  • The Bear is Com­ing (Bear Came Along(2019, by Richard T. Mor­ris) — Award­ed 2020 Calde­cott Hon­orThe sto­ry tells of a bear who acci­den­tal­ly falls onto a log in a riv­er. Soon after, a frog, a wild duck, a rac­coon, and a fox—animal com­pan­ions with diverse personalities—also bump into the log. Forced to team up amidst the rush­ing riv­er and cas­cad­ing water­falls, they embark on a thrilling and excit­ing raft­ing adven­ture that forges deep friend­ships.
  • The Next Spring (Out­side, Inside(2021) — A heart­warm­ing pic­ture book doc­u­ment­ing a spe­cial time in the world: It tells the touch­ing sto­ry of how peo­ple stayed togeth­er, made con­tri­bu­tions, and wait­ed with hope for the spring to bloom out­side when the out­side world sud­den­ly came to a stand­still and peo­ple had to stay inside their homes.
  • His rep­re­sen­ta­tive illus­tra­tions also include “Nev­er Yawn!“Stop that yawn!).

| Birth | LeUyen Pham | LeUyen Pham (Wikipedia) |

🎂 1955 – Born: Michael Gerard Bauer

Aus­tralian chil­dren’s and young adult nov­el­ist and teacher (1955). He excels at explor­ing the growth and explo­ration of ado­les­cents in the face of iso­la­tion, fam­i­ly trau­ma, and self-iden­ti­ty with extreme­ly del­i­cate psy­cho­log­i­cal obser­va­tion, sin­cere empa­thy, and appro­pri­ate humor.

  • Rep­re­sen­ta­tive works and con­tent:
  • The Fugi­tive (The Run­ning Man(2004) — Includ­ed in “1001 Chil­dren’s Books” and won the Aus­tralian CBCA Young Per­son­’s Book of the Year Award. The sto­ry tells of 14-year-old Joseph who takes on a school assign­ment to draw a por­trait of his eccen­tric and with­drawn neigh­bor. In the process, Joseph unrav­els the old man’s deep-seat­ed trau­ma from war and over­comes his own fear and prej­u­dice against the mys­te­ri­ous “fugi­tive” who con­stant­ly runs around town, pro­found­ly explor­ing the themes of accep­tance and heal­ing.

| Birth | Michael Ger­ard Bauer | Michael Ger­ard Bauer (Wikipedia) |

🎂 1931 – Born: Seymour Simon

Amer­i­can chil­dren’s sci­ence writer and for­mer high school sci­ence teacher (1931). He was hailed by the Amer­i­can edu­ca­tion and library com­mu­ni­ties as “the leader in pop­u­lar­iz­ing nat­ur­al sci­ence for chil­dren.” He wrote more than 300 pop­u­lar sci­ence pic­ture books in his life­time and was good at com­bin­ing high-def­i­n­i­tion, stun­ning nature pho­tog­ra­phy with rig­or­ous and pop­u­lar sci­en­tif­ic expla­na­tions.

  • Rep­re­sen­ta­tive works and con­tent:
  • “weath­er” (Weath­er(1993) — A time­less non-fic­tion sci­ence pic­ture book in class­rooms and libraries across the Unit­ed States: Through stun­ning weath­er pho­tog­ra­phy and clear, easy-to-under­stand text, it explains to young chil­dren the phys­i­cal mech­a­nisms behind nat­ur­al phe­nom­e­na such as wind for­ma­tion, cloud clas­si­fi­ca­tion, thun­der­storms, hur­ri­canes, and tor­na­does, inspir­ing chil­dren’s inter­est in explor­ing earth sci­ence.

| Birth | Sey­mour Simon | Sey­mour Simon (Wikipedia) |

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