August 23: Today in the History of Children’s Books

🎂 1927 – Born: Dick Bruna

Bruner was a renowned Dutch pic­ture book author, illus­tra­tor, and graph­ic design­er (1927–2017). He was a mas­ter of 20th-cen­tu­ry visu­al aes­thet­ics for young chil­dren, known for his extreme­ly pure min­i­mal­ist style. He insist­ed on hand-draw­ing bold black lines with a slight­ly trem­bling, hand­made feel, and strict­ly used the high­ly pure “Brunei six col­ors” (red, blue, yel­low, green, brown, and gray), cre­at­ing visu­al sym­bols that tran­scend lan­guage and cul­ture.

• Time­less clas­sic pic­ture books:
• ““Miffy the Rab­bit” series (Miffy / Dutch orig­i­nal name Nijn­t­je(Pub­lished in 1955) — a final­ist for the 1998 Hans Chris­t­ian Ander­sen Award for Illus­tra­tion. The sto­ry revolves around Miffy, an inno­cent and curi­ous lit­tle white rab­bit, record­ing her small but real dai­ly expe­ri­ences such as play­ing in the gar­den, vis­it­ing the zoo, cel­e­brat­ing her birth­day, or fac­ing the death of a loved one. The square for­mat and min­i­mal­ist illus­tra­tions pro­vide the safest and warmest visu­al edu­ca­tion for infants and tod­dlers world­wide.

| Birth | Dick Bruna | Dick Bruna (Wikipedia) |

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🎂 Born 1982: Mac Barnett

Amer­i­can con­tem­po­rary chil­dren’s pic­ture book author and chil­dren’s nov­el­ist (1982). He is adept at break­ing the fourth wall, con­struct­ing irony and mul­ti-lay­ered nar­ra­tives, and inspir­ing absurd humor and philo­soph­i­cal think­ing through the inter­play of text and illus­tra­tion. He is a high­ly inno­v­a­tive and dynam­ic sto­ry­teller in the con­tem­po­rary chil­dren’s pic­ture book world.

• Top Award and Rep­re­sen­ta­tive Works:
• Sam and David go dig­ging a hole (Sam and Dave Dig a Hole(Illus­tra­tion by Jon Klassen, 2014) — Award­ed Calde­cott Hon­or With the EB White Award: Two boys with a dog dig a hole in search of “mag­i­cal things.” The text describes how they keep chang­ing the direc­tion of their dig­ging, while the visu­als show them nar­row­ly miss­ing giant dia­monds time and time again, even­tu­al­ly falling into a famil­iar yet sub­tly changed court­yard, cre­at­ing a won­der­ful con­trast between text and image.
• The Town in Sweaters (Extra Yarn(Illus­trat­ed by Yong Karassen, 2012) — Award­ed Calde­cott Sil­ver Medal Win­ner of the Boston Globe-Horn Book Award: The sto­ry tells of a lit­tle girl named Annabelle who uses an end­less box of col­or­ful yarn to knit sweaters for every­one in town, hous­es, and even trees. In the face of greedy nobles try­ing to plun­der her, it presents a qui­et alle­go­ry about love and gen­eros­i­ty.
• The Shape Tril­o­gy: Tri­an­gle, Square, Cir­cle (Dreieck Quadrat Kreis(Illus­trat­ed by Yong Karassen) — Award­ed 2020 Ger­man Youth Lit­er­a­ture Prize (DJLP).
• His notable works also include *Leo: The Invis­i­ble True Friend*, a col­lab­o­ra­tion with Chris­t­ian Robin­son.Leo: A Ghost Sto­ry) and the pic­ture book biog­ra­phy “The Impor­tant Things About Mar­garet Wise Brown” (The Impor­tant Thing About Mar­garet Wise Brown).

| Birth | Mac Bar­nett | Mac Bar­nett (Wikipedia) |

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⚰️ 2021 — Passed away: Gunilla Bergström

A renowned Swedish chil­dren’s pic­ture book author, illus­tra­tor, and jour­nal­ist (1942–2021). She pio­neered the com­bi­na­tion of col­lage tech­niques with high­ly real­is­tic and psy­cho­log­i­cal­ly ground­ed sto­ries, offer­ing an authen­tic and lev­el per­spec­tive on the dai­ly psy­cho­log­i­cal activ­i­ties of chil­dren from sin­gle-par­ent fam­i­lies.

• Rep­re­sen­ta­tive works and con­tent:
• ““Lit­tle Alfie” series（Alfie Atkins / Swedish Alfons Åberg The series, begin­ning with “Good­night, Alfie”.God natt Alfons Åberg(1972) — List­ed in “1001 Chil­dren’s Books,” a Swedish nation­al clas­sic pic­ture book. The sto­ry revolves around a young boy named Alfie and his sin­gle father, depict­ing his var­i­ous excus­es to avoid falling asleep, his encoun­ters with imag­i­nary mon­sters, and the sub­tle psy­chol­o­gy of every­day lying and jeal­ousy. The work has accom­pa­nied gen­er­a­tions of Nordic chil­dren with its great empa­thy and every­day real­ism.
• The series also includes oth­er notable works such as “More Mon­sters, Alfie” (Alfie and the Mon­ster), “So Cun­ning, Alfie“Very Tricky, Alfie Atkins).

| Passed Away | Gunil­la Bergström | Gunil­la Bergström (Wikipedia) |

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⚰️ 2004 – Death: Viera Gergeľová

Slo­va­kian painter and pic­ture book illus­tra­tor (1930–2004). She was skilled at using flat water­col­or wash­es and del­i­cate, intri­cate Cen­tral Euro­pean folk dec­o­ra­tive lines to depict ancient leg­ends.

• Inter­na­tion­al Awards and Rep­re­sen­ta­tive Works:
• Based on “The Dev­il’s Lit­tle Mill: Finnish Folk Tales“Čer­tov mlynčekThe illus­tra­tions drawn by [author’s name] won [award/title]. Gold­en Apple Award at the 1989 Bratisla­va Inter­na­tion­al Bien­ni­al of Illus­tra­tion (BIB)The exhi­bi­tion uses a mys­te­ri­ous and dream­like light and shad­ow to show­case the charm of ancient Nordic leg­ends.

| Passed away | Viera Gergeľová | Viera Gergeľová (BIBIANA) |

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⚰️ 1997 – Death: Miloslav Jágr

A renowned Czech illus­tra­tor, ani­ma­tion film direc­tor, and uni­ver­si­ty pro­fes­sor (1927–1997). He was an impor­tant rep­re­sen­ta­tive of the Czech con­tem­po­rary illus­tra­tion school, whose style pos­sessed a strong sense of folk car­ni­val humor and pup­pet show qual­i­ty.

• Inter­na­tion­al Awards and Rep­re­sen­ta­tive Works:
• Based on Václav Čtvrtek’s famous work, “How the Shoe­mak­ers Start­ed a War for the Red Skirt” (Jak šev­ci zvedli vojnu pro čer­ve­nou sukniThe illus­tra­tions drawn by [author’s name] won an award. Plaque Award, 1981 Bratisla­va Inter­na­tion­al Bien­ni­al of Illus­tra­tions (BIB).

| Passed Away | Miloslav Jágr | Miloslav Jágr (Wikipedia) |

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🎂 1927 – Born: Melvin Berger

Amer­i­can chil­dren’s sci­ence writer (1927). He wrote hun­dreds of non-fic­tion sci­ence books for young chil­dren and was skilled at trans­form­ing com­plex phys­i­o­log­i­cal, phys­i­cal and mete­o­ro­log­i­cal knowl­edge into every­day sce­nar­ios that chil­dren could eas­i­ly under­stand.

• Rep­re­sen­ta­tive works and con­tent:
• Germs made me sick! (Germs Make Me Sick!(1985, illus­trat­ed by Mar­i­lyn Hafn­er) — A clas­sic book in the “Let’s-Read-and-Find-Out Sci­ence” series, which has been a best­seller in the Unit­ed States for decades. It explains to chil­dren the dif­fer­ence between bac­te­ria and virus­es, how the immune sys­tem works, and com­mon health pro­tec­tion knowl­edge such as fre­quent hand­wash­ing in a humor­ous and engag­ing way.

| Birth | Melvin Berg­er | Melvin Berg­er (Wikipedia) |

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🍃 [other]

event	fig­ure	Details/Awards	Wikipedia/Data Links
born	Bernard Mar­shall	Amer­i­can his­tor­i­cal nov­el­ist for chil­dren (1875–1945). His most famous work is *Cedric the Forester*.Cedric the Forester(1921) tells the sto­ry of Cedric, a medieval Eng­lish boy who ris­es from an ordi­nary for­est dweller to a knight and upholds jus­tice dur­ing the Magna Car­ta move­ment. It won the Best Actress award. The inau­gur­al New­bery Hon­or in 1922.	Bernard Mar­shall
Death	Flo­rence Atwa­ter	Amer­i­can chil­dren’s author (1896–1979). She co-authored the clas­sic humor­ous series *Mr. Pop­per’s Pen­guins* with her hus­band, Richard Atwa­ter.Mr. Pop­per’s Pen­guins(1938) tells the hilar­i­ous sto­ry of a house painter’s fam­i­ly rais­ing a pen­guin troupe for an inter­na­tion­al tour, and won an award. New­bery Hon­or, 1939.	Richard and Flo­rence Atwa­ter
Death	Myra Cohn Liv­ingston	Amer­i­can chil­dren’s poet, researcher, and edu­ca­tor of chil­dren’s poet­ry (1926–1996). She ded­i­cat­ed many years to pro­mot­ing and pop­u­lar­iz­ing chil­dren’s lim­er­icks and haiku, and authored *Humor­ous Five-Ele­ment Lim­er­icks* (…).Lots of Lim­er­icks) and “The Crick­et Nev­er Does“Crick­et Nev­er Does).	Myra Cohn Liv­ingston