August 28: Today in the History of Children’s Books

⚰️ 1995 – Death: Michael Ende

A renowned Ger­man chil­dren’s and philo­soph­i­cal fan­ta­sy writer (1929–1995). He was a giant of 20th-cen­tu­ry world fan­ta­sy lit­er­a­ture, adept at blend­ing pro­found phi­los­o­phy of time, reflec­tions on moder­ni­ty, and vast and mag­nif­i­cent fan­ta­sy worlds. His works have been trans­lat­ed into more than 40 lan­guages.

• An endur­ing lit­er­ary mon­u­ment:
• Momo (Momo(1973) — Award­ed 1974 Ger­man Youth Lit­er­a­ture Prize (DJLP)The sto­ry revolves around Momo, a mys­te­ri­ous orphaned girl liv­ing in the ruins of an ancient Roman amphithe­ater. She pos­sess­es the extra­or­di­nary tal­ent of hear­ing the voic­es of oth­ers. When the cold-blood­ed “Grey Men” (time thieves) induce the entire city’s res­i­dents to become indif­fer­ent and anx­ious in order to “save time,” Momo, with the help of Dr. Hol­lar, the Time Elder, and Casiopeia, a talk­ing tur­tle, uses the Flower of Time to resolve the cri­sis and reclaim the stolen human­i­ty and poet­ry of life.
• The Sto­ry That Nev­er Ends (The Nev­erend­ing Sto­ry / Orig­i­nal Ger­man name Die unendliche Geschichte(1979) — A mile­stone in the his­to­ry of chil­dren’s fan­ta­sy lit­er­a­ture: A timid lit­tle boy named Bas­t­ian finds a mag­ic book print­ed in two col­ors in a sec­ond­hand book­store. As he reads more, he dis­cov­ers that he has become the key fig­ure in sav­ing a fan­ta­sy king­dom that has fall­en into “noth­ing­ness”. In the end, he under­stands true love and desire in the process of recon­struct­ing him­self.
• His rep­re­sen­ta­tive works also include “Lit­tle But­ton Jim and Big Coach­man Lucas,” which was includ­ed in “1001 Chil­dren’s Books.“Jim Knopf and Lukas der Loko­mo­tivführer).

| Passed Away | Michael Ende | Michael Ende (Wikipedia) |

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🎂 Born 1937: Allen Say

Japan­ese-Amer­i­can pic­ture book author, pho­tog­ra­ph­er, and illus­tra­tor (1937). He is renowned world­wide for his extreme­ly serene and real­is­tic water­col­or paint­ings, his pho­to­graph­ic com­po­si­tion­al per­spec­tive, and his pro­found por­tray­al of immi­grant cross-cul­tur­al iden­ti­ty and home­sick­ness.

• Top Award and Rep­re­sen­ta­tive Works:
• Grand­pa’s Jour­ney (Grand­fa­ther’s Jour­ney(1993) — Award 1994 Calde­cott MedalA three-gen­er­a­tion auto­bi­o­graph­i­cal epic of an immi­grant fam­i­ly. It tells the sto­ry of how the grand­fa­ther left Japan by ship in his youth, crossed the Pacif­ic Ocean to the Unit­ed States, and fell in love with the vast moun­tains and rivers of Cal­i­for­nia; many years lat­er, he returned to Japan to set­tle down, but always longed for the land across the ocean. The paint­ings, with their con­cise and serene imagery rem­i­nis­cent of a pho­to album, ful­ly express the eter­nal home­sick­ness and dual sense of belong­ing in the heart of a cross-cul­tur­al wan­der­er.
• The Boy Who Slept for Three Years (The Boy of the Three-Year Nap(by Diane Sny­der) — Award­ed 1989 Calde­cott Hon­orBased on a Japan­ese folk­tale, the sto­ry tells of a lazy man named Taro who pre­tends to be a god and sends a dream to facil­i­tate a mar­riage.
• Award­ed in 2016 The Car­le Award for Artists.

| Birth | Allen Say | Allen Say (Wikipedia) |

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🎂 1900 – Born: Roger Duvoisin

Swiss-Amer­i­can author and illus­tra­tor of chil­dren’s pic­ture books (1900–1980). He was one of the lead­ing fig­ures of the gold­en age of Amer­i­can pic­ture books in the 20th cen­tu­ry, and was known for his use of high-puri­ty pri­ma­ry col­ors, live­ly and dynam­ic lines, and high­ly dec­o­ra­tive sto­ry­board­ing.

• Top Award and Rep­re­sen­ta­tive Works:
• Snow White (White Snow, Bright Snow(1947, by Alvin Tres­selt) — Award­ed The 1948 Calde­cott MedalThe book uses poet­ic prose and tran­quil water­col­or paint­ings in red, yel­low and black to record the process of the first snow of win­ter falling on a small town—from the busy dai­ly lives of post­men, farm­ers and police­men to the chil­dren’s joy­ful build­ing of snow­men with gloves on, show­ing the pure beau­ty of the chang­ing sea­sons.
• Hide and Seek in the Fog (Hide and Seek Fog(1965) — Award­ed 1966 Calde­cott Hon­orIt del­i­cate­ly cap­tures the dis­tinct­ly dif­fer­ent lifestyles of adults and chil­dren when a sea­side town is shroud­ed in thick fog for three days and three nights.
• ““Sil­ly Goose Piduni” series（Petu­nia (Series, 1950) — A humor­ous clas­sic writ­ten and illus­trat­ed by the author: It tells the sto­ry of a white goose named Petu­nia who finds a book and thinks that as long as she car­ries a book, she is knowl­edge­able. She gives bad advice to the farm ani­mals every­where, caus­ing hilar­i­ous chaos, and final­ly real­izes the truth that “not only should you car­ry a book, but you should also learn to read it.”

| Birth | Roger Duvoisin | Roger Duvoisin (Wikipedia) |

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🎂 1915 – Born: Tasha Tudor

Amer­i­can chil­dren’s illus­tra­tor, pic­ture book author, and pas­toral lifestyle enthu­si­ast (1915–2008). She was known for her extreme­ly ele­gant and gen­tle Vic­to­ri­an clas­si­cal water­col­or style. She spent her life in seclu­sion on a farm in Ver­mont, and her self-suf­fi­cient lifestyle of hand-spin­ning yarn, gar­den­ing, and rais­ing cor­gis became a leg­endary sym­bol of pas­toral aes­thet­ics world­wide.

• Top Award and Rep­re­sen­ta­tive Works:
• Twice award­ed the Calde­cott Hon­or: With its exquis­ite­ly hand-drawn clas­sic nurs­ery rhyme pic­ture book, *Moth­er Goose Rhymes*Moth­er Goose(1944) and the ear­ly child­hood math clas­sic “One is the Only One” (1 Is OneHe won the sil­ver medal twice (in 1956).
• Cor­gi Town Mar­ket (Cor­giville Fair(1971) — A fic­tion­al, tran­quil town inhab­it­ed by cor­gis, cats, rab­bits, and skunks, depict­ing the idyl­lic scene of ani­mals par­tic­i­pat­ing in an annu­al car­ni­val parade, bak­ing com­pe­ti­tions, and goat races.

| Birth | Tasha Tudor | Tasha Tudor (Wikipedia) |

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🎂 Born 1961: Brian Pinkney

African Amer­i­can pic­ture book illus­tra­tor and author (1961). He is the son of renowned illus­tra­tor Jer­ry Pinkney and author Andrea Davis Pinkney. He pio­neered the use of scratch­board­ing com­bined with acrylic and water­col­or wash­es, cre­at­ing images full of rhyth­mic and sculp­tur­al lines.

• Top Award and Rep­re­sen­ta­tive Works:
• Loy­al Friends (The Faith­ful FriendRobert D. Saint Susie (1995) — Award­ed 1996 Calde­cott Hon­or With Cori­ta Scott Gold Medal: Based on a folk­tale from Mar­tinique, a Caribbean island, this film por­trays a stead­fast friend­ship that tran­scends social class and the threat of death.
• Duke Elling­ton (Duke Elling­ton(Andrea Davis Pinkni­van, 1998) — Award­ed 1999 Calde­cott Hon­orThe art­work, fea­tur­ing sway­ing scratch art lines with a strong jazz rhythm, chron­i­cles the musi­cal career of jazz leg­end Duke Elling­ton.

| Birth | Bri­an Pinkney | Bri­an Pinkney (Wikipedia) |

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⚰️ 1989 – Died: John Steptoe

African Amer­i­can chil­dren’s pic­ture book author and illus­tra­tor (1950–1989). He made his debut at the age of 19 with his first book, *Ste­vie*.Ste­vieIt shocked the Amer­i­can chil­dren’s book indus­try and was a pio­neer in bring­ing real African Amer­i­can com­mu­ni­ty life, Black slang and col­lo­qui­alisms and African tra­di­tion­al cus­toms to the main­stream pic­ture book.

• Top Award and Rep­re­sen­ta­tive Works:
• Mufro’s Beau­ti­ful Daugh­ter: An African Fairy Tale (Mufaro’s Beau­ti­ful Daugh­ters: An African Tale(1987) — Award­ed 1988 Calde­cott Hon­or and Bratisla­va Inter­na­tion­al Bien­ni­al of Illus­tra­tion (BIB) Hon­orsBased on a tra­di­tion­al Zim­bab­wean folk­tale, the film tells the sto­ry of two sis­ters, the hot-tem­pered and self­ish Manya­ka and the gen­tle and kind Niasha, who go to the palace to apply for the posi­tion of queen. Step­toe, with his metic­u­lous and real­is­tic brush­strokes rem­i­nis­cent of clas­si­cal Renais­sance oil paint­ings, recre­ates the solemn glo­ry of ancient Great Zim­bab­wean civ­i­liza­tion and the true good­ness and beau­ty of human­i­ty.
• His rep­re­sen­ta­tive works also include the Native Amer­i­can folk­tale pic­ture book *The Jump­ing Mouse*, which won the 1985 Calde­cott Hon­or.The Sto­ry of Jump­ing Mouse).

| Passed Away | John Step­toe | John Step­toe (Wikipedia) |

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🍃 [other]

event	fig­ure	Details/Awards	Wikipedia/Data Links
born	Claude Roy	A renowned French poet and chil­dren’s author (1915–1997). In 1988, he received a High­ly Com­mend­ed nom­i­na­tion for the Hans Chris­t­ian Ander­sen Award (HCAA) for Best Writer.Its rep­re­sen­ta­tive fairy tale is “The Talk­ing Cat” (Le chat qui par­lait mal­gré lui(1982) tells the sto­ry of a cat that sud­den­ly starts talk­ing and its bewil­der­ment and obser­va­tions of the human world in a philo­soph­i­cal and French humor­ous tone.	Claude Roy
born	Phyl­lis Krasilovsky	Amer­i­can chil­dren’s pic­ture book author (1926–2014). His rep­re­sen­ta­tive work is *The Cow That Fell into the Riv­er* (…).The Cow Who Fell in the Canal(1957, illus­trat­ed by Peter Spi­er) tells the hilar­i­ous sto­ry of Hen­drik, a Dutch cow who is tired of eat­ing grass and longs to see the world, who falls into a canal and drifts on a raft to the city cen­ter. It is list­ed in “1001 Chil­dren’s Books”.	Phyl­lis Krasilovsky
Death	Peter Hacks	Jules the Mouse (1928–2003), a renowned Ger­man play­wright and chil­dren’s poet. His rep­re­sen­ta­tive work for chil­dren is *Jules the Mouse*.Jules Rat­te(1981) tells the sto­ry of Cap­tain Mouse’s sea adven­tures in a humor­ous and wit­ty poet­ic style and is includ­ed in “1001 Chil­dren’s Books”.	Peter Hacks