Bridge of Ajia

August 20: Today in the History of Children’s Books

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🎂 Born 1947: Alan Lee

British con­cept design­er, illus­tra­tor, and artist (1947). He is a lead­ing fig­ure in con­tem­po­rary clas­si­cal fan­ta­sy and mytho­log­i­cal epic illus­tra­tion, known for his ethe­re­al and pro­found water­col­or wash­es and pre­cise and real­is­tic depic­tions of clas­si­cal archi­tec­ture and nat­ur­al land­scapes. He won the Acad­e­my Award for Best Art Direc­tion for The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King.

  • Top Award and Rep­re­sen­ta­tive Works:
  • The Black Ships Before Troy (Black Ships Before Troy: The Sto­ry of the Ili­ad(1993, by Rose­mary Sut­cliff) — Award­ed 1993 Kate Green­away Medal (CIL) and The French Sor­cières AwardAlan Lee’s clas­sic children’s retelling of Homer’s epic poem, the Ili­ad, is pre­sent­ed in a grand and slight­ly melan­cholic water­col­or style. It per­fect­ly cap­tures the rage of Achilles, the shad­ow of the Tro­jan Horse, and the trag­ic epic feel of the ancient bat­tle­field.
  • The Odyssey (The Wan­der­ings of Odysseus(1995) — Con­tin­u­ing the epic water­col­or tex­ture, it vivid­ly depicts Odysseus’s myth­i­cal adven­ture of return­ing home after ten years of wan­der­ing.
  • Mid­dle-earth on Paper: Alan Lee’s Sketch­es of The Lord of the Rings (The Lord of the Rings Sketch­book— This doc­u­ment records the man­u­scripts and cre­ative process that laid the visu­al foun­da­tion for Tolkien’s Mid­dle-earth (the Shire, Riven­dell, and Minas Tirith).

| Birth | Alan Lee | Alan Lee (Wikipedia) |

🎂 Born 1945: Tarō Gomi

Japan­ese pic­ture book author and indus­tri­al design­er (1945). He is one of the most pro­lif­ic and influ­en­tial pic­ture book mas­ters in Japan and the world, hav­ing cre­at­ed more than 400 pic­ture books. His works are known for their extreme­ly refined and humor­ous geo­met­ric shapes, clever use of white space, and inge­nious cap­ture of the cog­ni­tive per­spec­tive of young chil­dren.

  • Rep­re­sen­ta­tive works and con­tent passed down through gen­er­a­tions:
  • The Croc­o­dile Who Was Afraid of the Den­tist (The Croc­o­dile and the Den­tist (Orig­i­nal Japan­ese title: 『わにさんどきっはいしゃさんどきっ』, 1984) — A clas­sic dual-per­spec­tive pic­ture book: The entire book uses iden­ti­cal short sen­tences of dia­logue to present in par­al­lel the croc­o­dile’s fear of going to the den­tist and the den­tist’s fear of pulling the croc­o­dile’s teeth. This humor­ous and empa­thet­ic con­trast helps young chil­dren eas­i­ly over­come their fear of going to the den­tist while laugh­ing hearti­ly.
  • “Every­one Come and Poop” (Every­one Poops / Orig­i­nal Japan­ese title: ‘Min­nauchi’ (1977) — A clas­sic pic­ture book for phys­i­o­log­i­cal cog­ni­tion: It presents chil­dren with the eat­ing and excre­tion of dif­fer­ent ani­mals in an objec­tive, nat­ur­al, and non-preachy tone, trans­form­ing phys­i­o­log­i­cal com­mon sense into vivid and inter­est­ing nat­ur­al cog­ni­tion.
  • Spring­time of the Calf (Spring Is Here (Orig­i­nal Japan­ese name: 『うしさんのはる』) — clev­er­ly using the black and white stripes on a calf as a can­vas for the chang­ing sea­sons, show­cas­ing the poet­ic flow of the nat­ur­al cycle.
  • Rep­re­sen­ta­tive works also include the ever­green work “Lit­tle Ele­phan­t’s Bus” (“ぞうさんのバス”), which is suit­able for young chil­dren.

| Birth | Tarō Gomi | Tarō Gomi (Wikipedia) |

🎂 Born 1971: Rébecca Dautremer

French con­tem­po­rary pic­ture book author, illus­tra­tor, and art direc­tor (1971). Her style is unique in the inter­na­tion­al pic­ture book world. She is skilled at using extreme­ly fine gouache and opaque water­col­or, sat­u­rat­ed and warm retro dark red tones, and per­spec­tive com­po­si­tions with dra­mat­ic ten­sion.

  • Top Award and Rep­re­sen­ta­tive Works:
  • Lit­tle Lovers (L’Amoureux(2003) — Award­ed 2004 French Prix Sor­cièresThe sto­ry tells of a young boy named Hayne who always likes to tease a lit­tle girl named Salome on the play­ground. The adults tell Salome that this is actu­al­ly “he has fall­en in love with you.” This leads Salome to embark on a naive philo­soph­i­cal inquiry into “what is love.”
  • The For­got­ten Princess (Les Princess­es oubliées or incon­nues(Writ­ten by Philippe Lecher­meier) — Includ­ed in “1001 Chil­dren’s Books”. Pre­sent­ed in a humor­ous, satir­i­cal, and visu­al­ly stun­ning ency­clo­pe­dic for­mat, it fic­tion­al­izes and depicts dozens of fan­tas­ti­cal princess­es with diverse per­son­al­i­ties and uncon­ven­tion­al ways.
  • “Jacob the Rab­bit’s Song of Life” (Jacomi­nus Gains­bor­ough— Using the life of the anthro­po­mor­phic rab­bit Jacob as a thread, this panoram­ic paint­ing with oil paint­ing qual­i­ty deeply sings the prais­es of the love, small hap­pi­ness and peace­ful aging expe­ri­enced by an ordi­nary life.

| Birth | Rébec­ca Dautremer | Rébec­ca Dautremer (Wikipedia) |

⚰️ 2016 — Passed away: Morton Schindel

Amer­i­can film and ani­ma­tion pro­duc­er and pio­neer in pro­mot­ing chil­dren’s read­ing (1918–2016). He found­ed the world-renowned [orga­ni­za­tion name miss­ing] in 1953. West­on Woods Stu­diosIt pio­neered the use of “icono­graph­ic ani­ma­tion” tech­nol­o­gy to faith­ful­ly repro­duce and adapt clas­sic pic­ture books into high-qual­i­ty chil­dren’s ani­mat­ed films and tele­vi­sion series, great­ly pro­mot­ing the dis­sem­i­na­tion of world clas­sic pic­ture books in class­rooms and homes.

  • Supreme Hon­ors and Indus­try Con­tri­bu­tions:
  • Award­ed in 2006 The Car­le Bridge Hon­oreeThrough­out his life, he led his team to bring hun­dreds of Calde­cott Medal-win­ning clas­sics, includ­ing “Where the Wild Things Are,” “Swim­my,” “Snowy Day,” and “Make Way for Duck­lings,” to the screen, earn­ing him the rep­u­ta­tion in the Amer­i­can edu­ca­tion com­mu­ni­ty as “a mas­ter of bridg­ing chil­dren’s lit­er­a­ture with mov­ing images.”

| Deceased | Mor­ton Schin­del | Mor­ton Schin­del (Wikipedia) |

🎂 Born 1962: Mélanie Watt

Cana­di­an chil­dren’s pic­ture book author and illus­tra­tor (1962). She is wide­ly loved by young read­ers across the Unit­ed States for her high­ly mod­ern graph­ic design-style flow­chart lay­outs, vivid facial expres­sions, and humor­ous inter­ac­tive sto­ry­telling.

  • Rep­re­sen­ta­tive works and con­tent:
  • ““Timid Squir­rel” series（Scaredy Squir­rel The series (the inau­gur­al work from 2006, also known as the “Fear or Not” series in Chi­nese) tells the sto­ry of “Fear,” a squir­rel filled with fear of the unknown and extreme­ly cau­tious. Every day, it hides in its famil­iar oak tree, pre­pared with a gas mask, antibac­te­r­i­al soap, and an emer­gency escape plan, fear­ing encoun­ters with bac­te­ria, poi­son vines, or sharks. How­ev­er, an acci­den­tal slip reveals that it has not only land­ed safe­ly but is also a fly­ing squir­rel capa­ble of glid­ing! The work humor­ous­ly helps chil­dren learn to face anx­i­ety and step out of their com­fort zones.

| Birth | Mélanie Watt | Mélanie Watt (Wikipedia) |

🎂 Born 1951: Judith Byron Schachner

Amer­i­can chil­dren’s pic­ture book author and illus­tra­tor (1951). She is skilled at using live­ly water­col­or col­lage lines and bilin­gual rhyth­mic games to cre­ate imag­i­na­tive pet char­ac­ters.

  • Rep­re­sen­ta­tive works and con­tent:
  • ““Naughty Cat Jump­ing” series（Skip­pyjon Jones (Series, 2003) — List­ed in “1001 Chil­dren’s Books”. The sto­ry tells of a Siamese cat named “Jumpy” with unusu­al­ly large ears and a Chi­huahua-like appear­ance. While locked in a room to reflect on his actions, he uses his bound­less imag­i­na­tion to trans­form him­self into “Schip­i­to Friski­to,” a Span­ish swords­man hero wear­ing an eye­patch who saves the entire vil­lage of beans from being stolen by bum­ble­bees. The whole book is full of wit­ty Span­ish puns and dynam­ic rhythms.

| Birth | Judith Byron Schachn­er | Judith Byron Schachn­er (Wikipedia) |

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