This Day in Children’s Book History: September 20th

Select­ed his­tor­i­cal events

• Sep­tem­ber 20, 1863 — Death: Ger­man lin­guist and fairy tale writer Jacob Grimm died in Berlin[1]. Togeth­er with his broth­er Wil­helm, he col­lect­ed and com­piled Grim­m’s Fairy Tales, a clas­sic col­lec­tion of fairy tales that has had a pro­found impact on chil­dren’s lit­er­a­ture world­wide. Many of his sto­ries, such as Cin­derel­la and Snow White, have become time­less clas­sics for children[1].

• Sep­tem­ber 20, 1936 — Born: British writer and screen­writer Andrew Davies was born[2]. He is a pro­lif­ic writer of chil­dren’s lit­er­a­ture, includ­ing the Guardian Award-win­ning Con­rad’s War. He has adapt­ed many chil­dren’s works into films and tele­vi­sion, pro­mot­ing the visu­al dis­sem­i­na­tion of British chil­dren’s stories[2].

• Sep­tem­ber 20, 2018 — Death: Hong Kong chil­dren’s lit­er­a­ture writer Huang Qingyun passed away[3]. She was one of the main cre­ators of Hong Kong’s ear­ly child­hood mag­a­zine “New Child”. She wrote many chil­dren’s sto­ries and poems, enriched the local expres­sion of Chi­nese chil­dren’s lit­er­a­ture, and had a pos­i­tive impact on Hong Kong chil­dren’s education[3].

Oth­er alter­na­tive events

• 1803: British children’s author Cather­ine Crowe was born.[4] She wrote many children’s nov­els with super­nat­ur­al ele­ments, explor­ing mid­dle-class life in the Vic­to­ri­an era and influ­enc­ing the devel­op­ment of ear­ly fan­ta­sy children’s books.

• 1941: Amer­i­can illus­tra­tor Arthur Geis­ert was born.[5] He is known for his wood­block print-style illus­tra­tions and cre­at­ed chil­dren’s pic­ture books such as Pigs from A to Z, which blend­ed sci­ence and humor and was nom­i­nat­ed for a Calde­cott Medal.

• 1963: Amer­i­can children’s book author Elise Broach was born[6]. Her works, such as Shakespeare’s Secret, explore his­tor­i­cal and adven­ture themes and are very pop­u­lar among mid­dle school stu­dents. She was nom­i­nat­ed for the Nation­al Book Award. Her works that have been trans­lat­ed into Chi­nese include: Mas­ter­piece, Duet, and Bed­time for lit­tle bull­doz­er.

• 2018: John Cun­liffe, the British children’s author and author of the clas­sic children’s series Post­man Pat, which was adapt­ed into an ani­mat­ed series and has been enjoyed by gen­er­a­tions of chil­dren around the world, died.[7]

[1] Broth­ers Grimm – Wikipedia, the free ency­clo­pe­dia
https://zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E6%A0%BC%E6%9E%97%E5%85%84%E5%BC%9F

[2] Andrew Davis (author) – Wikipedia, the free ency­clo­pe­dia
https://zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E5%AE%89%E5%BE%B7%E9%B2%81%C2%B7%E6%88%B4%E7%BB%B4%E6%96%AF_(%E4%BD%9C%E5%AE%B6)

[3] Huang Qingyun (writer) – Wikipedia, the free ency­clo­pe­dia
https://zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E9%BB%83%E6%85%B6%E9%9B%B2_(%E4%BD%9C%E5%AE%B6)

[4] Sep­tem­ber 20 Writer Birth­days – The Petri­ni Page
https://petrinipage.com/2024/09/20/september-20-writer-birthdays/

[5] Author and Illus­tra­tor Birth­days – Look­ing Glass Review
https://lookingglassreview.com/books/authors-illustrators/birthdays/

[6] Elise Broach – Wikipedia
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elise_Broach

[7] John Cun­liffe (author) – Wikipedia
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Cunliffe_(author)