Bridge of Ajia

September 2nd: Today in the history of children’s books

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⚰️ 1973 – Death: J.R.R. Tolkien

John Ronald Ruel Tolkien (1892–1973), a renowned British lin­guist, pro­fes­sor at Oxford Uni­ver­si­ty, and a founder of mod­ern fan­ta­sy lit­er­a­ture, was a pio­neer of the mod­ern “Sec­ond World” high-fan­ta­sy sys­tem. With his rig­or­ous and pro­found knowl­edge of Old Eng­lish and lin­guis­tics, he sin­gle-hand­ed­ly cre­at­ed the mod­ern “Sec­ond World” high-fan­ta­sy sys­tem and is wide­ly rec­og­nized as the father of mod­ern clas­si­cal seri­ous fan­ta­sy lit­er­a­ture.

  • An endur­ing lit­er­ary mon­u­ment:
  • The Hob­bit (The Hob­bit, or There and Back Again(1937) — Select­ed for “1001 Chil­dren’s Books,” a mile­stone in the his­to­ry of chil­dren’s fan­ta­sy lit­er­a­ture. The sto­ry begins with Bil­bo Bag­gins, a hob­bit who loves a peace­ful life in Bag End, embark­ing on an adven­ture to the Lone­ly Moun­tain to reclaim the dwar­ven trea­sure seized by the drag­on Smaug, at the invi­ta­tion of the wiz­ard Gan­dalf and the thir­teen dwarves. Bil­bo encoun­ters Gol­lum in the Misty Moun­tains and unex­pect­ed­ly obtains the One Ring, ulti­mate­ly grow­ing into a true hero through his kind­ness, wit, and courage.
  • The Lord of the Rings tril­o­gy (The Lord of the Rings(1954–1955) and The Sil­mar­il­lion (The Sil­mar­il­lion(1977) — Con­structs a grand epic of Mid­dle-earth encom­pass­ing a self-cre­at­ed Elvish lan­guage, geog­ra­phy, chron­i­cles, and mythol­o­gy, and pro­found­ly explores the allure of pow­er, sac­ri­fice, friend­ship, and the preser­va­tion of civ­i­liza­tion.

| Deceased | JRR Tolkien | JRR Tolkien (Wikipedia) |

🎂 1904 – Born: Elizabeth Borton de Treviño

She was a renowned American/Mexican chil­dren’s author and jour­nal­ist (1904–2001). Hav­ing lived in Mex­i­co for many years, she excelled at recon­struct­ing the lives of his­tor­i­cal fig­ures through rig­or­ous his­tor­i­cal research, a dig­ni­fied human­is­tic per­spec­tive, and beau­ti­ful, authen­tic clas­si­cal nar­ra­tives.

  • Top Award and Rep­re­sen­ta­tive Works:
  • “I, Juan de Pare­ja” (I, Juan de Pare­ja(1965) — Award­ed 1966 New­bery MedalBased on a true his­tor­i­cal fig­ure, this film tells the sto­ry of Juan de Pare­ja, a black slave in 17th-cen­tu­ry Spain dur­ing the Gold­en Age. From a young age, Juan served Diego Velázquez, the chief court painter. While slaves were for­bid­den from paint­ing, Juan secret­ly learned the art and dis­played remark­able tal­ent. Velázquez, moved by Juan’s tal­ent and noble char­ac­ter, even­tu­al­ly freed him and took him on as his offi­cial assis­tant and life­long friend. Juan lat­er became a renowned painter in Span­ish his­to­ry. The work pro­found­ly inter­prets the dig­ni­ty of art and the equal friend­ship that tran­scends social sta­tus.

| Birth | Eliz­a­beth Bor­ton de Tre­viño | Eliz­a­beth Bor­ton de Tre­viño (Wikipedia) |

🎂 1942 – Born: Ellen Stoll Walsh

A renowned Amer­i­can chil­dren’s pic­ture book author, illus­tra­tor, and col­lage artist (1942). She was adept at using sol­id-col­or cut-paper col­lage and high­ly refined ani­mal sto­ries to trans­form ear­ly con­cepts such as col­or har­mo­ny, spa­tial graph­ics, and num­bers into pic­ture books full of play­ful­ness and sus­pense.

  • Rep­re­sen­ta­tive works and con­tent:
  • “Ear­ly Con­cep­tu­al Under­stand­ing Series of “Three Mice”（Mouse Books (series) — A time­less clas­sic in ear­ly child­hood cog­ni­tive devel­op­ment across the Unit­ed States:
  • Three Mice Love Col­or­ing (Mouse Paint(1989) — Three pure white mice hide from a cat on a piece of white paper and acci­den­tal­ly dis­cov­er three cans of paint: red, yel­low, and blue. Through the fun game of mix­ing col­ors and leav­ing foot­prints, the book vivid­ly demon­strates to young chil­dren the mag­i­cal col­or prin­ci­ple that mix­ing the three pri­ma­ry col­ors pro­duces sec­ondary col­ors of orange, green, and pur­ple.
  • Three Mice Love to Count (Mouse Count(1991) — Com­bin­ing num­ber count­ing with the clever escape plan of a lit­tle mouse out­smart­ing a hun­gry snake.
  • His rep­re­sen­ta­tive works also include “Three Mice Love Puz­zle” (Mouse Shapes), Three Mice Love Mag­ic (Mouse Mag­ic).

| Birth | Ellen Stoll Walsh | Ellen Stoll Walsh (Wiki­da­ta) |

🎂 Born 1940: Hans Ticha

A renowned Ger­man illus­tra­tor, print­mak­er, and graph­ic design­er (1940). He was a lead­ing fig­ure in East Ger­man and con­tem­po­rary Ger­man Pop Art and Mod­ernist illus­tra­tion, known for his dis­tinc­tive style char­ac­ter­ized by strik­ing geo­met­ric blocks of col­or, smooth spheres and cylin­ders, strong mechan­i­cal Pop Art ele­ments, and sharp, humor­ous social satire.

  • Top Award and Rep­re­sen­ta­tive Works:
  • At In 2022, he received the Spe­cial Prize for Life­time Achieve­ment in Illus­tra­tion from the Ger­man Youth Lit­er­a­ture Prize (DJLP)..
  • The Sala­man­der Rebel­lion (Der Krieg mit den MolchenKarel Čapekvin) and Rain­bow Ser­pent (Die Schlange Regen­bo­gen— Show­cas­ing his unique Cubist and Pop Art com­po­si­tions; his rep­re­sen­ta­tive works also include the chil­dren’s pic­ture book “The Lit­tle Rob­ber, the Coat, and the Goat” (Vom Räu­berchen, dem Rock and dem Ziegen­bock).

| Birth | Hans Ticha | Hans Ticha (Wikipedia) |

🎂 Born 1975: Junko Nakamura

A Japan­ese-French pic­ture book author and illus­tra­tor (1975). Born in Japan, she lat­er moved to Paris. Her style blends the del­i­cate imprints of East­ern prints with the poet­ic white space of mod­ern Euro­pean chil­dren’s books, skill­ful­ly using mono­chrome roller print­ing and ink tex­tures to depict the tran­quil­i­ty and warmth of every­day life.

  • Top Award and Rep­re­sen­ta­tive Works:
  • At the Banana House (Chez Berg­amote(2023) — Award­ed 2024 French Prix Sor­cières (Prince of Sor­cières) Award for Tod­dler Pic­ture Books (Car­ré­ment tout-petits)The book uses hand-print­ed prints with a very approach­able and tac­tile feel to depict the dai­ly light and shad­ow, smells and small details of a lit­tle girl in the warm home of berg­amot, show­ing the tran­quil­i­ty and secu­ri­ty of ear­ly life.

| Birth | Junko Naka­mu­ra | Junko Naka­mu­ra (Wiki­da­ta) |

🎂 1936 – Born: John Bierhorst

A renowned Amer­i­can folk­lorist, anthro­pol­o­gist, and trans­la­tor of chil­dren’s lit­er­a­ture (1936). He ded­i­cat­ed his life to col­lect­ing, research­ing, and trans­lat­ing into Eng­lish the oral lit­er­ary her­itage of Native Amer­i­cans (Aztec, Mayan, Iro­quois, etc.) and var­i­ous Latin Amer­i­can peo­ples.

  • Rep­re­sen­ta­tive works and con­tent:
  • Select­ed Latin Amer­i­can Folk Tales (Latin Amer­i­can Folk­tales: Sto­ries from His­pan­ic and Indi­an Tra­di­tions(2002) — This book sys­tem­at­i­cal­ly reviews and retells ani­mal fables, cre­ation myths, and ghost sto­ries that have been passed down in Latin Amer­i­ca for hun­dreds of years, open­ing the door for Eng­lish-speak­ing chil­dren and gen­er­al read­ers to under­stand the diverse tra­di­tion­al cul­tures of Latin Amer­i­ca.

| Birth | John Bier­horst | John Bier­horst (Wikipedia) |

🎂 1820 – Born: Lucretia Peabody Hale

She was a renowned 19th-cen­tu­ry Amer­i­can chil­dren’s humor writer and edu­ca­tor (1820–1900). She was an ear­ly pio­neer of absur­dist humor lit­er­a­ture for Amer­i­can chil­dren in the 19th cen­tu­ry.

  • Rep­re­sen­ta­tive works and con­tent:
  • The Peter Kings (The Peterkin Papers(1880) — A clas­sic of Amer­i­can chil­dren’s humor: This book tells the sto­ry of the bum­bling and con­fused Peter King fam­i­ly, who, when faced with triv­ial prob­lems in their dai­ly lives, always come up with extreme­ly com­pli­cat­ed and absurd ideas (such as putting salt in cof­fee instead of sug­ar and try­ing var­i­ous chem­i­cals to rem­e­dy the sit­u­a­tion), until the clever “Lady Philadel­phia” offers a sim­ple, com­mon-sense sug­ges­tion that resolves the trou­bles. The entire book show­cas­es the joy of com­mon sense and log­ic through gen­tle satire.

| Birth | Lucre­tia Peabody Hale | Lucre­tia Peabody Hale (Wikipedia) |

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