February 20th: Today in the history of children’s books

🎂 February 20, 1923 – Birth: Rosemary Harris

British renowned chil­dren’s lit­er­a­ture authorRose­mary Har­risBorn (1923–2019).

• Impor­tant works and achieve­ments:
• Carnegie Medal: With theThe Moon in the Clouds-The Moon in the Cloud(Pub­lished in 1968) won awards 1968 Carnegie Medal.
• con­tent: This is a wit­ty and humor­ous fan­ta­sy nov­el that retells the sto­ry of Noah’s Ark from a fresh per­spec­tive. The pro­tag­o­nist is not Noah, but Ruben, a young musi­cian who col­lects ani­mals for him. Har­ris skill­ful­ly blends mythol­o­gy, his­to­ry, and com­e­dy, show­cas­ing both the bril­liance and weak­ness­es of human­i­ty.

| born Rose­mary Har­ris | Rose­mary Har­ris (Wikipedia) |

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⚰️ February 20, 1920 – Died: Jacqueline Rivière

French writer and edi­torJacque­line Riv­ièreHe died in 1851–1920.

• Impor­tant works and con­tri­bu­tions:
• Bec­ca­si­na（Bécas­sineShe is the embod­i­ment of this clas­sic French car­toon char­ac­ter.Text Author(Illus­tra­tion by Joseph Pin­chon)
• His­tor­i­cal sig­nif­i­cance: Bec­ca­si­na, born in 1905, is a sim­ple, even some­what clum­sy, maid who wears a tra­di­tion­al Bre­ton white head­dress. She is a fig­ure in the his­to­ry of comics.The first female pro­tag­o­nistIt even pre­dates “The Adven­tures of Tintin”. Although the ear­ly com­ic book for­mat was illus­tra­tions with text (with­out speech bub­bles), it had a pro­found influ­ence on the devel­op­ment of Euro­pean comics and was includ­ed in “1001 Chil­dren’s Books”.

| Death Jacque­line Riv­ière | Jacque­line Riv­ière (French Wikipedia) |

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⚰️ February 20, 1980 – Died: Katherine Shippen

Amer­i­can writ­ersCather­ine Ship­penShe died in 1892–1980. She is best known for writ­ing excel­lent non-fic­tion (his­to­ry, sci­ence) books for young peo­ple.

• Impor­tant works and achieve­ments:
• New­bery Hon­or: With theThe New­ly Dis­cov­ered World-New Found World(Pub­lished in 1945) won awards New­bery Sil­ver Medal, 1946This is a book about the his­to­ry of South Amer­i­ca, from the Inca civ­i­liza­tion to the polit­i­cal land­scape dur­ing World War II.
• oth­er: Her oth­er pop­u­lar sci­ence work, *Humans, Micro­scopes, and Organ­isms*Men, Micro­scopes, and Liv­ing ThingsHe also won the New­bery Sil­ver Medal (1956).

| Death | Kather­ine Ship­pen | Kather­ine Ship­pen (Wikipedia) |