Bridge of Ajia

August 26: Today in the History of Children’s Books

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Ajia

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🎂 Born 1932: Lygia Bojunga Nunes

A renowned Brazil­ian chil­dren’s and young adult lit­er­a­ture writer (1932). She is a land­mark fig­ure in Latin Amer­i­can chil­dren’s lit­er­a­ture, adept at blend­ing mag­i­cal real­ism, pro­found psy­cho­log­i­cal obser­va­tions, and explo­rations of social oppres­sion and the pur­suit of free­dom, with con­cise yet high­ly spir­i­tu­al writ­ing.

  • The world’s high­est hon­or in two cat­e­gories (Grand Slam):
  • At He won the Hans Chris­t­ian Ander­sen Award (HCAA) for Best Writer in 1982.(The first Latin Amer­i­can writer to receive this hon­or).
  • At She received the Astrid Lind­gren Memo­r­i­al Award (ALMA) in 2004..
  • Rep­re­sen­ta­tive works and con­tent:
  • My Painter Friend (O meu ami­go pin­tor(1987) — Select­ed for “1001 Chil­dren’s Books”. A clas­sic chil­dren’s psy­cho­log­i­cal real­ism nov­el: It tells the sto­ry of the sin­cere friend­ship between a young boy named Clau­dio and his neigh­bor, a young painter. The painter teach­es him to use col­ors such as red, yel­low, brown, and black to per­ceive emo­tions and the world. When the painter sud­den­ly com­mits sui­cide, Clau­dio search­es for answers in grief and con­fu­sion, and ulti­mate­ly under­stands the com­plex­i­ty of life and finds peace through col­or and paint­ings.
  • Yel­low School­bag (A Bol­sa Amarela / The Yel­low Bag(1976) — This film tells the sto­ry of a lit­tle girl who hides three secret desires that adults can­not under­stand (want­i­ng to grow up quick­ly, want­i­ng to be a boy, and want­i­ng to be a writer) in a mag­i­cal yel­low back­pack, explor­ing female inde­pen­dence and self-iden­ti­ty with humor­ous and absurd imag­i­na­tion.
  • His rep­re­sen­ta­tive works also include his debut nov­el, *The Com­pan­ions*.Os cole­gas, 1972).

| Birth | Lygia Bojun­ga Nunes | Lygia Bojun­ga Nunes (Wikipedia) |

🎂 1948 – Born: Rotraut Susanne Berner

A renowned Ger­man chil­dren’s pic­ture book author, illus­tra­tor, and graph­ic design­er (1948). She is a giant in the con­tem­po­rary Ger­man visu­al arts scene, known for her gen­tle and unhur­ried lines, humor­ous and life­like details, and grand panoram­ic nar­ra­tives.

  • Top Award and Rep­re­sen­ta­tive Works:
  • At In 2016, he won the Hans Chris­t­ian Ander­sen Award (HCAA) for Best Artist.With the illus­tra­tion “Bare Hands“Bloße Hände) won 1998 Ger­man Youth Lit­er­a­ture Prize (DJLP).
  • The Sea­sons Time Panoram­ic Word­less Pic­ture Book Series（Wim­mel­buch Sea­son SeriesInclud­ing “The Sto­ry of Spring”, “The Sto­ry of Sum­mer”, “The Sto­ry of Autumn”, “The Sto­ry of Win­ter” and “Night­fall” — the pin­na­cle of mod­ern sit­u­a­tion­al cog­ni­tive pic­ture books (Wim­mel­buch): the entire set is set in the same town, streets, apart­ments, farms and cul­tur­al cen­ter, with dozens of cit­i­zens and ani­mals unfold­ing their own con­tin­u­ous sto­ry­lines through­out the four sea­sons, con­struct­ing an almost mirac­u­lous par­al­lel visu­al nar­ra­tive net­work.
  • Dig­i­tal Dev­il (Der Zahlen­teufel(Hans Mag­nus Enzens­berg­er) — illus­trat­ed this glob­al­ly pop­u­lar math­e­mat­i­cal primer nov­el with a fan­tas­ti­cal and whim­si­cal style.
  • His rep­re­sen­ta­tive works also include the ever­green pic­ture book series “Lit­tle Rab­bit Carl” for young chil­dren.Karlchen-Geschicht­en), Yuk Schu­biger’s clas­sic nov­el “When the World Was Young“Als die Welt noch jung war,illus­tra­tion).

| Birth | Rotraut Susanne Bern­er | Rotraut Susanne Bern­er (Wikipedia) |

⚰️ 1977 – Death: HA Rey

Hans Augus­to Rey­ers­bach (1898–1977), a Ger­man-Amer­i­can chil­dren’s pic­ture book author, illus­tra­tor, and astron­o­my enthu­si­ast, was born. Dur­ing World War II, he and his wife, Mar­gret Rey, fled Nazi-occu­pied Paris on a home­made bicy­cle with their draw­ings and set­tled in the Unit­ed States.

  • Time­less clas­sic pic­ture books:
  • Curi­ous George series (Curi­ous George (The series, pub­lished in 1941, co-cre­at­ed with his wife Mar­garet Ray) — includ­ed in “1001 Chil­dren’s Books,” a mile­stone in ear­ly child­hood edu­ca­tion that has cap­ti­vat­ed the world for over eighty years. The sto­ries revolve around George, a lit­tle mon­key with bound­less curios­i­ty about every­thing in the world, and a man wear­ing a yel­low hat. George’s curios­i­ty often leads to hilar­i­ous lit­tle trou­bles in his dai­ly life, but he always man­ages to escape unscathed thanks to his clev­er­ness and kind­ness. The works per­fect­ly res­onate with chil­dren’s innate desire to explore the world.
  • Clas­sic pop­u­lar sci­ence arti­cles on astron­o­my: “Let’s Dis­cov­er the Con­stel­la­tions Togeth­er“Find the Con­stel­la­tions) and The Mys­tery of the Stars (The Stars: A New Way to See Them— Recon­nect­ing star charts with extreme­ly clear and intu­itive lines, it has become a time­less primer for astron­o­my enthu­si­asts world­wide.

| Passed away | HA Rey | HA Rey (Wikipedia) |

⚰️ 2013 – Death: Wolfgang Herrndorf

A renowned Ger­man nov­el­ist, painter, and illus­tra­tor (1965–2013). His works have shak­en the lit­er­ary world with their extreme­ly pure and nat­ur­al first-per­son nar­ra­tion of ado­les­cence, their cool and humor­ous nar­ra­tive rhythm, and their pro­found philo­soph­i­cal reflec­tions on life.

  • Top Award and Rep­re­sen­ta­tive Works:
  • High­way Boys (Tschick(2010, also trans­lat­ed as “Good­bye Berlin”) — Award 2011 Ger­man Youth Lit­er­a­ture Prize (DJLP) for Young Peo­ple’s BooksThe sto­ry fol­lows Michael, a 14-year-old boy from a wealthy but with­drawn fam­i­ly in Berlin, who, along with Chick, a Russ­ian trans­fer stu­dent, steals a beat-up Lada and embarks on a wild, aim­less road trip dur­ing sum­mer vaca­tion. The work real­is­ti­cal­ly por­trays the boys’ lone­li­ness, friend­ship, class clash­es, and their new­found under­stand­ing of the world, and is hailed as the “Catch­er in the Rye” of 21st-cen­tu­ry Ger­man lit­er­a­ture.
  • His rep­re­sen­ta­tive works also include the absur­dist sus­pense nov­el *Beware, There Are Peo­ple in the Desert* (Sand).

| Passed Away | Wolf­gang Her­rn­dorf | Wolf­gang Her­rn­dorf (Wiki­da­ta) |

⚰️ 1994 – Death: Werner Klemke

A renowned Ger­man graph­ic design­er, print­mak­er, and book illus­tra­tor (1917–1994). He was a lead­ing mas­ter of the post-war East Ger­man illus­tra­tion school, skilled at recon­struct­ing lit­er­ary clas­sics using del­i­cate and expres­sive wood­cut prints, pen and ink sketch­es, and rich col­ors.

  • Inter­na­tion­al Awards and Rep­re­sen­ta­tive Works:
  • With his adap­ta­tion of Man­fred Gre­gor’s fairy tale “The Cow Who Loved Flow­ers” (Fer­di­nand der Sti­erThe wood­cut illus­tra­tions drawn by [author’s name] won an award. The Gold­en Apple Award at the inau­gur­al Bratisla­va Inter­na­tion­al Bien­ni­al of Illus­tra­tions (BIB) in 1967..

| Deceased | Wern­er Klemke | Wern­er Klemke (Wikipedia) |

🎂 1922 – Born: Patricia Beatty

Amer­i­can his­tor­i­cal fic­tion writer for chil­dren (1922–1991). She was known for her abil­i­ty to por­tray resilient young peo­ple and women amidst major his­tor­i­cal upheavals such as the Amer­i­can Civ­il War, based on metic­u­lous and rig­or­ous his­tor­i­cal research.

  • Rep­re­sen­ta­tive works and con­tent:
  • Han­nah, Come Home (Turn Home­ward, Han­nalee(1984) — This film tells the epic sto­ry of Han­nah, a 12-year-old tex­tile work­er from Geor­gia who was tak­en to the North by the Union Army at the end of the Amer­i­can Civ­il War. She keeps her promise and walks thou­sands of miles to find her fam­i­ly amidst the war-torn ruins.
  • His rep­re­sen­ta­tive works also include the famous nov­el *Lupi­ta Man­ana*, which reflects the plight of Mex­i­can immi­grant teenagers.Lupi­ta Mañana).

| Birth | Patri­cia Beat­ty | Patri­cia Beat­ty (Wikipedia) |

⚰️ 2007 – Death: Harvey Weiss

Amer­i­can sculp­tor and author of non-fic­tion and sci­ence pic­ture books for chil­dren (1922–2007). He was known for com­bin­ing detailed illus­tra­tive illus­tra­tions with hands-on sci­en­tif­ic activ­i­ties.

  • Rep­re­sen­ta­tive works and con­tent:
  • Maps: From Here to There (Maps: Get­ting from Here to There(1991) — A clas­sic non-fic­tion pic­ture book for chil­dren: using vivid and humor­ous lan­guage and hand-drawn illus­tra­tions, it sys­tem­at­i­cal­ly intro­duces chil­dren to scale, con­tour lines, coor­di­nate sys­tems, and how to draw their own trea­sure maps.

| Passed Away | Har­vey Weiss | Har­vey Weiss (Wiki­da­ta) |

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