This Day in Children’s Book History: September 22

🎂 1924 – Born: Charles Keeping

A renowned British chil­dren’s pic­ture book author, illus­tra­tor, and lith­o­g­ra­ph­er (1924–1988). He was one of the cen­tral fig­ures of the 20th-cen­tu­ry British visu­al expres­sion­ist rev­o­lu­tion in pic­ture books, along­side Bri­an Will­smith and John Burn­ing­ham. He pio­neered the intro­duc­tion of com­plex lith­o­g­ra­phy tech­niques, mod­ernist geo­met­ric abstrac­tion, dis­tort­ed and pow­er­ful lines, and deep, even some­what Goth­ic, urban psy­cho­log­i­cal light­ing into chil­dren’s books, thor­ough­ly expand­ing the breadth and seri­ous­ness of chil­dren’s visu­al art.

• World-class awards and rep­re­sen­ta­tive works:
• Twice award­ed the Kate Green­away Medal (CIL): In 1967, he starred in “Char­lie, Char­lotte and the Canary” (Charley, Char­lotte and the Gold­en CanaryHe won his first award in 1981 for his work on Alfred Noyce’s clas­sic nar­ra­tive poem, *High­way Rob­bers*.The High­way­manHis black-and-white hor­ror illus­tra­tions have once again won the Green­away Medal.
• Two Grand Prizes at the Bratisla­va Inter­na­tion­al Bien­ni­al of Illus­tra­tion (BIB): In 1973, with “Spi­der Web” (The Spi­der’s Web) BIB Hon­ors and AwardsIn 1975, he won the award for his self-writ­ten and self-paint­ed mas­ter­piece, “Rail­way Pas­sage” (Rail­way Pas­sage) Vic­to­ry BIB Gold­en Apple Award.
• They were award­ed in 1974. High­ly Com­mend­ed by the Hans Chris­t­ian Ander­sen Award (HCAA) for Best Artist.
• Joseph’s Yard (Joseph’s Yard(1969) — A philo­soph­i­cal alle­go­ry mas­ter­piece writ­ten and illus­trat­ed by Kai Ping: A young boy named Joseph plants a small rose in the mud­dy ground of a cramped and des­o­late city court­yard. To pos­sess its beau­ty, Joseph first picks the first flower, caus­ing it to with­er. Then, to “pro­tect” it, he cov­ers the flower with a piece of black tin, near­ly killing it. Through the sea­sons and the nest­ing of birds, Joseph final­ly under­stands the true mean­ing of let­ting go and respect­ing the nat­ur­al growth of life.
• He wrote the clas­sic his­tor­i­cal nov­el *The Red-Clad War­riors* by Rose­mary Sut­cliff.War­rior Scar­let), The Knight’s Reward (Knight’s FeeHe cre­at­ed ink line illus­tra­tions with a strong sense of pri­mal, wild pow­er, and also pro­duced stun­ning and time­less wood­block print illus­tra­tions for the com­plete works of Dick­ens.

| Birth | Charles Keep­ing | Charles Keep­ing (Wikipedia) |

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🎂 1908 – Born: Esphyr Slobodkina

A renowned Russ­ian-Amer­i­can artist, chil­dren’s book author, illus­tra­tor, and sculp­tor (1908–2002). Born in Chelyabin­sk, Rus­sia, she immi­grat­ed to the Unit­ed States ear­ly in her life and became one of the co-founders of the Amer­i­can Abstract Artists. She pio­neered the inte­gra­tion of pure mod­ern hard-edge abstrac­tion with min­i­mal­ist paper-cut­ting col­lage into chil­dren’s pic­ture books, cre­at­ing works char­ac­ter­ized by pure col­ors, a strong sense of form, and a whim­si­cal sense of humor.

• Rep­re­sen­ta­tive works and con­tent passed down through gen­er­a­tions:
• Sell­ing Hats (Caps for Sale: A Tale of a Ped­dler, Some Mon­keys and Their Mon­key Busi­ness(1940) — Select­ed for “1001 Chil­dren’s Books,” this book has been a glob­al best­seller for over eighty years and is con­sid­ered essen­tial read­ing for ear­ly child­hood read­ing and chil­dren’s dra­ma in the Unit­ed States. The sto­ry tells of an unusu­al hat ven­dor who walks the streets with all his hats stacked on top of his head—first his own plaid hat, then a stack of gray hats, a stack of brown hats, a stack of blue hats, and final­ly a stack of red hats on top. One day, he wakes up from a nap under a tree to find that all his hats, except for his plaid hat, have been stolen and worn by mon­keys in the tree. The ven­dor angri­ly stomps his feet, punch­es his fists, and roars, but the mon­keys in the tree sim­ply mim­ic his actions. Final­ly, in despair, the ven­dor slams his plaid hat to the ground, and the mon­keys also take off their hats and throw them to the ground, allow­ing the ven­dor to suc­cess­ful­ly retrieve all his hats. The book, with its light­heart­ed mim­ic­ry and dra­mat­ic ten­sion, has become a humor­ous land­mark in pic­ture book his­to­ry.

| Birth | Esphyr Slo­bod­ki­na | Esphyr Slo­bod­ki­na (Wikipedia) |

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🎂 1929 – Born: Ann Grifalconi

A renowned Amer­i­can chil­dren’s book illus­tra­tor, author, and visu­al anthro­pol­o­gist (1929–2020). Her works com­bine a pro­found cross-cul­tur­al per­spec­tive with keen field obser­va­tion skills. She was adept at using gouache, col­ored crayons, and col­lages with rich tex­tures and light and shad­ow to show­case the liv­ing wis­dom and com­mu­ni­ty civ­i­liza­tion of tra­di­tion­al vil­lages in Africa, Latin Amer­i­ca, and oth­er parts of the world.

• Top Award and Rep­re­sen­ta­tive Works:
• The Vil­lage of Square and Round Hous­es (The Vil­lage of Round and Square Hous­es(1986) — Award 1987 Calde­cott Hon­orThe sto­ry is based on the remote vil­lage of Tos, nes­tled at the foot of an ancient vol­cano in Cameroon, West Africa. In this vil­lage, men live in square hous­es, and women in round ones. Through her grand­moth­er’s nar­ra­tion, the lit­tle girl learns that this tra­di­tion stems from the ancient wis­dom of her ances­tors, devel­oped after a vol­canic erup­tion, to avoid con­flict and har­mo­nious­ly rebuild their homes amidst the ruins. Grefa­coni vivid­ly por­trays the vital­i­ty of the African plains and the warmth of inter­gen­er­a­tional com­mu­ni­ty life with deep, sun­ny orange and earthy brown pas­tel col­ors.
• His rep­re­sen­ta­tive works also include Lucille Clifton’s famous poem, “The Farewell of Everett Ander­son” (Everett Ander­son­’s Good­byeA heart­warm­ing black and white illus­tra­tion drawn by [author’s name].

| Birth | Ann Gri­fal­coni | Ann Gri­fal­coni (Wikipedia) |

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🎂 Born 1939: Ruth Hürlimann

A renowned Swiss chil­dren’s pic­ture book illus­tra­tor and author (1939). A grad­u­ate of the Zurich Acad­e­my of Fine Arts, she was a lead­ing fig­ure in the Euro­pean neo­clas­si­cal pic­ture book style of the 1970s. Her style is ele­gant and dig­ni­fied, and she excels at using high­ly lay­ered and metic­u­lous hatch­ing, rich and sta­ble retro water­col­or tones, and dra­mat­i­cal­ly tran­quil frame com­po­si­tions to breathe mod­ern life into ancient folk fables.

• Twice award­ed the Plaque at the Bratisla­va Inter­na­tion­al Bien­ni­al of Illus­tra­tions (BIB):
• City Rats and Coun­try Rats (Stadt­maus und Land­maus(1970) — Award­ed Plaque Award, 1971 Bratisla­va Inter­na­tion­al Bien­ni­al of Illus­tra­tions (BIB)This book retells Aesop’s clas­sic fables, con­trast­ing the tran­quil­i­ty and ease of coun­try mice with the fear and anx­i­ety of wealthy city mice under the shad­ow of lux­u­ri­ous cheese and vicious hunt­ing dogs from a del­i­cate and warm micro­scop­ic per­spec­tive.
• “Tom and Jer­ry Become Friends” (Katze und Maus in Gesellschaft(1973) — Award­ed Plaque Award, 1975 Bratisla­va Inter­na­tion­al Bien­ni­al of Illus­tra­tions (BIB)Swiss Chil­dren’s Book Award: Adapt­ed from the clas­sic Grim­m’s Fairy Tales. The cat and mouse buy a jar of lard and hide it under the church floor to pre­pare for win­ter. The cun­ning cat repeat­ed­ly lies about attend­ing bap­tisms, secret­ly eat­ing the lard—“scratching off a lay­er,” “eat­ing half,” until it’s “com­plete­ly devoured,” ulti­mate­ly reveal­ing its fero­cious beast­ly nature. Schür­rle­man, with his calm, objec­tive, and sus­pense­ful visu­al rhythm, presents the real­is­tic sur­vival rules of folk tales.

| Birth | Ruth Hür­li­mann | Ruth Hür­li­mann (Sikart) |

• 2024: Mal­colm Don­ald­son, hus­band of British children’s author Julia Don­ald­son, dies. Although not direct­ly involved in the writ­ing of Donaldson’s books, he sup­port­ed her career as a pedi­a­tri­cian. His mas­ter­pieces, such as The Gruffa­lo, are beloved by chil­dren world­wide.The Don­ald­sons vis­it­ed Chi­na togeth­er in March 2007 and told sto­ries to chil­dren in libraries and book­stores in Bei­jing., Mal­colm played gui­tar and Julia sang the sto­ry of the Gruffa­lo. This pedi­a­tri­cian who also had great achieve­ments in the med­ical field and spe­cial­ized in endocrinol­o­gy,He is often called “Dr. Gruffa­lo” by his young patients.(Dr. Gruffa­lo).