August 27: Today in the History of Children’s Books

🎂 1896 – Born: Kenji Miyazawa

He was a renowned Japan­ese chil­dren’s author, poet, agri­cul­tur­al sci­ence teacher, veg­e­tar­i­an, and geol­o­gist (1896–1933). He was rel­a­tive­ly unknown dur­ing his life­time, but his works were posthu­mous­ly hailed as nation­al lit­er­ary trea­sures of Japan. His writ­ings are char­ac­ter­ized by a pro­found and ethe­re­al world­view, a com­pas­sion­ate and egal­i­tar­i­an view of nature and all liv­ing things, and a lan­guage rich in musi­cal rhythm and mys­ti­cal ono­matopoeia.

• An endur­ing lit­er­ary mon­u­ment:
• Night on the Galac­tic Rail­road (Night on the Galac­tic Rail­road (Orig­i­nal Japan­ese title: *Gin­ga Tet­su­do no Yoru*) — A pin­na­cle of Japan­ese chil­dren’s fan­ta­sy lit­er­a­ture: On the night of the Galac­tic Fes­ti­val, impov­er­ished boy Gio­van­ni unex­pect­ed­ly boards a mys­te­ri­ous train trav­el­ing through the daz­zling Milky Way with his best friend Cobenel­la. They pass through the con­stel­la­tions Cygnus, Scor­pius, and South­ern Cross, wit­ness­ing the souls of var­i­ous depart­ed beings, and ulti­mate­ly come to under­stand the sub­lime mean­ing of sac­ri­fice, truth, and “for the true hap­pi­ness of all.” The work is filled with poet­ic depic­tions of the star­ry sky and a pro­found spir­it of self-sac­ri­fice.
• The Restau­rant That Makes Too Many Demands (The Restau­rant of Many Orders / (Orig­i­nal Japan­ese title: ‘注文の多い料理店’, 1924) — A humor­ous and satir­i­cal fairy tale: Two arro­gant gen­tle­men, with their hounds, go hunt­ing in the moun­tains and mis­tak­en­ly enter a West­ern restau­rant called “Lynx House.” The signs on the door instruct them to remove their hats, take off their guns, and apply but­ter and salt, which the gen­tle­men believe to be high-class hos­pi­tal­i­ty, until they final­ly dis­cov­er that they are actu­al­ly the “main course” on the lynx spir­it’s menu.
• Rep­re­sen­ta­tive works also include “Cel­list Taka­su” (『セロ弾きのゴーシュ』) and “Wind Mata Saburo” (《风のMATATASABRO》).

| Birth | Ken­ji Miyaza­wa | Ken­ji Miyaza­wa (Wikipedia) |

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🎂 1921 – Born: Arlene Mosel

Amer­i­can chil­dren’s author, librar­i­an, and uni­ver­si­ty pro­fes­sor (1921–1996). She was adept at refin­ing and retelling ancient folk tales and bal­lads from around the world into rhyth­mic and engag­ing clas­sic pic­ture book texts suit­able for read­ing aloud.

• Authors of rep­re­sen­ta­tive works that have won the Calde­cott Medal (of course, the Calde­cott Medal is main­ly award­ed to illus­tra­tors):
• The Laugh­ing Old Woman Who Lost Her Rice Ball (The Fun­ny Lit­tle Woman(Illus­tra­tion by Blair Lent, 1972) — Award­ed 1973 Calde­cott MedalBased on a Japan­ese folk­tale, the sto­ry tells of a cheer­ful old woman who always laughs with a “hee-hee-hee-hee” laugh. While chas­ing a rice ball that rolls into a hole in the ground, she is cap­tured by the evil spir­its and forced to become their cook. The old woman uses a mag­i­cal rice spoon to cook for the evil spir­its, and even­tu­al­ly escapes back to the sur­face with her wit and humor, becom­ing the rich­est laugh­ing old woman in all of Japan with her mag­ic rice spoon.
• “Heav­en-Sent Baby and Ah Xiao” (Tik­ki Tik­ki Tem­bo(Illus­tra­tion by Blair Lant, 1968) — Award­ed 1969 Calde­cott Hon­orThis humor­ous sto­ry, adapt­ed from an ancient East­ern oral tra­di­tion, tells of how, accord­ing to old cus­tom, the eldest son’s name had to be extreme­ly long (“Tiki Tiki Tam­bo-Nosa Lum­bo-Char­lie Bar­ry Luchi-Pep Per­ry Bloom­bo”), while the sec­ond son was called “Lit­tle.” When the two broth­ers fell into a well one after the oth­er, the long names led to a long cry for help and a hilar­i­ous reflec­tion, explain­ing why peo­ple’s names lat­er became short­er.

| Birth | Arlene Mosel | Arlene Mosel (Wikipedia) |

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🎂 1942 — Born: Akiko Sueyoshi

A renowned Japan­ese chil­dren’s lit­er­a­ture author (1942–2016). Her works are known for their extreme­ly del­i­cate and gen­tle obser­va­tion of chil­dren’s psy­chol­o­gy and for their abil­i­ty to open up entrances to mys­tery and fan­ta­sy in the mun­dane space of dai­ly life. She has won the Noma Chil­dren’s Lit­er­a­ture Award, the Shogakukan Lit­er­a­ture Award, and the Sankei Chil­dren’s Pub­lish­ing Cul­ture Award.

• Rep­re­sen­ta­tive works and con­tent:
• The King of Hide and Seek in the For­est (もりのかくれんぼう(1978, illus­trat­ed by Akiko Hayashi) — A clas­sic fan­ta­sy pic­ture book: It tells the sto­ry of a lit­tle girl named Keiko who, while chas­ing after her broth­er, acci­den­tal­ly wan­ders into a mys­te­ri­ous for­est shroud­ed in gold­en autumn leaves. In the for­est, she encoun­ters a “hide-and-seek king” whose entire body is made of leaves and branch­es, and engages in a won­drous game of hide-and-seek with the ani­mals hid­den among the trees. Akiko Hayashi’s del­i­cate use of light and shad­ow per­fect­ly com­ple­ments Akiko Sueyoshi’s heart­warm­ing nar­ra­tive.
• His rep­re­sen­ta­tive works also include the chil­dren’s fan­ta­sy nov­el *The Sev­en Mag­ics of the Black Rose*.Black mag­ic), The Girl Who Returned to the Stars (Star girl).

| Birth | Akiko Sueyoshi | Akiko Sueyoshi (Wikipedia) |

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🎂 1938 – Born: Gennady Pavlishin

A renowned Peo­ple’s Artist, illus­tra­tor, and mosa­ic mas­ter of the Sovi­et Union/Russia (1938). He lived for a long time in the Khabarovsk region of the Russ­ian Far East and was famous for his extreme­ly metic­u­lous brush­work, rich col­ors, and paint­ing style that was full of the char­ac­ter­is­tics of the north­ern primeval forests and the local peo­ple.

• Inter­na­tion­al Awards and Rep­re­sen­ta­tive Works:
• Based on his col­lec­tion and edit­ing of Amur Fairy Tales for Dmit­ry Dmitrievich Nag­ishkin (Amurski­je skaz­ki / Russ­ian orig­i­nal name Амурские сказкиThe grand folk illus­tra­tions drawn in 1975 won an award. Gold­en Apple Award at the 1975 Bratisla­va Inter­na­tion­al Bien­ni­al of Illus­tra­tions (BIB)The book uses metic­u­lous details of zool­o­gy and botany, along with the totemic pat­terns of eth­nic groups such as the Namib­ian and Ude­gai, to present a mys­te­ri­ous epic of the rela­tion­ship between humans and nature in the great forests of East Siberia.

| Birth | Gen­nady Pavlishin | Павлишин, Геннадий Дмитриевич (Wikipedia) |

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🎂 1934 – Born: Ann Rinaldi

Amer­i­can chil­dren’s his­tor­i­cal fic­tion writer and jour­nal­ist (1934–2021). She was an extreme­ly pro­lif­ic cre­ator in the field of Amer­i­can chil­dren’s his­tor­i­cal fic­tion, and was skilled at using ordi­nary girls in real his­tor­i­cal events as first-per­son nar­ra­tors, com­bin­ing rig­or­ous archival doc­u­ments with del­i­cate por­tray­als of ado­les­cent emo­tions.

• Rep­re­sen­ta­tive works and con­tent:
• Exhaust­ing the Spir­it of Char­ac­ter (Num­ber­ing All the Bones(2002) — This film tells the mov­ing sto­ry of Euryale, a 13-year-old slave girl from the Ander­son­ville pris­on­er-of-war camp in Geor­gia, who, at the end of the Amer­i­can Civ­il War, helped iden­ti­fy and bury tens of thou­sands of fall­en sol­diers in the ruins and search for free­dom and her loved ones.
• His oth­er notable works also include *Break with Mer­cy*, set against the back­drop of the Salem witch tri­als.A Break with Char­i­ty), Sarah Revere’s Secret (The Secret of Sarah Revere).

| Birth | Ann Rinal­di | Ann Rinal­di (Wikipedia) |

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🎂 Born 1986: Mickaël Brun-Arnaud

French chil­dren’s lit­er­a­ture author, psy­chol­o­gist, and founder of a chil­dren’s book­store in Paris (1986). His writ­ing style is gen­tle and del­i­cate, and he is good at explor­ing pro­found life themes such as mem­o­ry, aging, and fam­i­ly warmth through anthro­po­mor­phic for­est ani­mal sto­ries.

• Top Award and Rep­re­sen­ta­tive Works:
• Mem­o­ries of the For­est: The Mem­o­ries of Fer­di­nand the Mole (Mon­u­ments to the fore: Les Sou­venirs de Fer­di­nand Taupe(2022, illus­trat­ed by Mako­to Sano/Sanoe) — Award­ed 2023 Prix Sor­cières (French Sor­cières Prize) for Chil­dren’s Fic­tionThe sto­ry takes place in the warm and invit­ing Bella­wood For­est, where Archibald the fox runs a used book­store, and Fer­di­nand the mole grad­u­al­ly los­es his mem­o­ry due to the “winds of for­get­ting” (a ten­der metaphor for Alzheimer’s dis­ease). Archibald decides to accom­pa­ny Fer­di­nand on a jour­ney across the for­est to find his scat­tered mem­o­ries and loved ones, mak­ing it a heart­warm­ing and heal­ing work for read­ers world­wide.

| Birth | Mick­aël Brun-Arnaud | Mick­aël Brun-Arnaud (Wikipedia) |

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🍃 [other]

event	fig­ure	Details/Awards	Wikipedia/Data Links
Death	Sergey Mikhalkov	Hans Chris­t­ian Ander­sen (1913–2009), a renowned Soviet/Russian poet, play­wright, and mas­ter of chil­dren’s lit­er­a­ture. He was award­ed the Hans Chris­t­ian Ander­sen Award with an hon­orary cer­tifi­cate. His clas­sic chil­dren’s lit­er­ary char­ac­ter, Uncle Ste­jopa, is famous.Uncle Sty­opa(1935) tells the sto­ry of a tall, brave, help­ful and kind police­man, and is a well-known nation­al fairy tale in Rus­sia; he is also the lyri­cist of the nation­al anthem that spans the Sovi­et Union and the mod­ern Russ­ian Fed­er­a­tion.	Sergey Mikhalkov
born	Gra­ham Oak­ley	A renowned British chil­dren’s pic­ture book author and illus­tra­tor (1929–2022). His clas­sic pic­ture book series, *The Cat and the Mouse*, is a tes­ta­ment to this.The Church Mouse(1972) tells the hilar­i­ous sto­ry of Sam­son, a loy­al cat, liv­ing peace­ful­ly with a group of clever mice and out­smart­ing thieves in an old Eng­lish church. It was includ­ed in “1001 Chil­dren’s Books”.	Gra­ham Oak­ley
born	CS For­rest CS Forester	A renowned British nau­ti­cal and his­tor­i­cal nov­el­ist (1899–1966). His rep­re­sen­ta­tive work is *The Hap­py Return*.The Hap­py Return(1937) Fea­tur­ing Hor­a­tio Horn­blow­er, a Roy­al Navy cap­tain dur­ing the Napoleon­ic Wars, the book show­cas­es a stead­fast sea­far­ing adven­ture and naval bat­tles, and is includ­ed in the “1001 Chil­dren’s Books”.	CS Forester
born	Suzy Kline	Amer­i­can chil­dren’s nov­el­ist and for­mer ele­men­tary school teacher (1943). His clas­sic chil­dren’s bridge book, *The Ter­ri­ble Har­ry in Class­room 2B* (…).Hor­ri­ble Har­ry in Room 2BThe series (1988) uses a light­heart­ed and humor­ous style to depict the real mis­chie­vous dai­ly lives and friend­ships of low­er ele­men­tary school stu­dents.	Suzy Kline
born	Annick Del­humeau	French illus­tra­tor and sculp­tor (1937). His most famous work is the pic­ture book *Boossy the Gold­en Ham­ster*.Bussy le ham­ster doréThe play­ful and whim­si­cal flat col­or­ing won an award. Plaque, 1969 Bratisla­va Inter­na­tion­al Bien­ni­al of Illus­tra­tions (BIB).	Annick Del­humeau
born	Rain­er Sach­er	Ger­man sci­ence and chil­dren’s illus­tra­tor (1939). Known for her chil­dren’s sci­ence illus­tra­tions, “Water Every­where” (…).Wass­er über­all), won Hon­orary Men­tion at the 1981 Bratisla­va Inter­na­tion­al Bien­ni­al of Illus­tra­tions (BIB).	Rain­er Sach­er
Death	Ben­no Plu­dra	A renowned Ger­man chil­dren’s author (1925–2014). He was a mul­ti­ple final­ist for the Hans Chris­t­ian Ander­sen Award, and his rep­re­sen­ta­tive work is *The Pirate’s Heart*.Das Herz des Pirat­en(1985) tells the sto­ry of a girl named Jessie who finds a mag­i­cal pirate heart-shaped stone on the beach and recon­structs her mem­o­ries of her father and her own courage in a fan­ta­sy and real­i­ty. It is list­ed in “1001 Chil­dren’s Books”.	Ben­no Plu­dra