April 14: Today in the History of Children’s Books

⚰️ April 14, 1980 – Died: Gianni Rodari

The father of Ital­ian chil­dren’s lit­er­a­ture and one of the great­est fairy tale writ­ers of the 20th cen­tu­ry. Gian­ni Rodari He died in 1920–1980.

• High­est Hon­or:
  • The Hans Chris­t­ian Ander­sen Award (HCAA): At 1970 He won the Writer’s Award.
• Rep­re­sen­ta­tive works:
  • The Adven­tures of Cipolli­no (The Adven­tures of Cipolli­no(This is a clas­sic work that uses veg­eta­bles and fruits as the main char­ac­ters to praise free­dom and jus­tice.)
  • A Fairy Tale on the Tele­phone (Tele­phone Tales(Short, con­cise, and imag­i­na­tive, show­cas­ing the ubiq­ui­tous imag­i­na­tion in every­day life.)
  • The Gram­mar of Fan­ta­sy (The Gram­mar of Fan­ta­sy(This is a mas­ter­piece explor­ing the the­o­ry of cre­ative writ­ing, hailed as “the text­book of inven­tion sto­ries”.)
• sta­tus: He advo­cat­ed for the “lib­er­a­tion of imag­i­na­tion,” trans­form­ing fairy tales from mere didac­tic tools into weapons to inspire chil­dren’s inde­pen­dent think­ing and crit­i­cal spir­it.

| Passed Away | Gian­ni Rodari | Gian­ni Rodari (Wikipedia) |

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🎂 April 14, 1932 – Born: Viera Bombová

Famous Slo­va­kian artist and illus­tra­tor Vieira Bom­bo­va Born (1932–2021). She was an ear­ly lead­ing fig­ure of the BIB (Bratisla­va Inter­na­tion­al Bien­ni­al of Illus­tra­tions).

• High­est Hon­or:
  • BIB Gold­en Apple Award: He has won the award twice in a row.1967 and 1969).
• Rep­re­sen­ta­tive works:
  • Yanko Gan­dashik and Ms. Kim (Janko Gondášik a zlatá pani)
  • The Foot­steps of Giants: Maori Fairy Tales (Obro­va stu­paj: maori­jské rozprávky)
• style: Her works pos­sess a strong sense of nation­al dec­o­ra­tive style and mod­ern com­po­si­tion, suc­cess­ful­ly com­bin­ing Slo­vak folk art with mod­ern illus­tra­tion lan­guage.

| Birth | Vieira Bom­bo­va | Viera Bom­bová (Bib­iana) |

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🎂 April 14, 1923 – Born: Robert Lopshire

Amer­i­can renowned pic­to­r­i­al book author and illus­tra­tor Robert Lopesch­er Born (1923–2002).

• Clas­sic works:
  • I Want to Live in the Zoo (Put Me in the Zoo): A sig­na­ture work in Dr. Seuss’s “Begin­ner’s Read­er” series, it tells the sto­ry of a dog that can change the col­or of its spots at will in search of a home.
  • I Want a Makeover (I want to be some­one new!A bril­liant sequel to the pre­vi­ous work, a humor­ous explo­ration of self-iden­ti­ty.
• con­tribute: He excels at using min­i­mal­ist vocab­u­lary and exag­ger­at­ed visu­al humor to build a bridge of con­fi­dence for chil­dren who are just begin­ning to read inde­pen­dent­ly.

| Birth | Robert Lopesch­er | Robert Lop­shire (Wikipedia) |

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🎂 April 14, 1971 – Born: Delphine Chedru

A high­ly cre­ative con­tem­po­rary French pic­ture book author and illus­tra­tor Del­phine Cedru born.

• Key Achieve­ments:
  • French Prix Sor­cières: With the works Paul said! (Paul a dit!Award­ed 2017 Gold Medal.
• Inter­ac­tive mas­ter­pieces:
  • “Spot the Dif­fer­ence to Learn Count­ing” (Cherche et trou­ve les chiffres)
  • Thank You, Sun (Mer­ci, le soleil!)
• fea­ture: Her works are full of visu­al dis­cov­ery and inter­ac­tive fun, and she is adept at using clever ideas of col­or and graph­ics to stim­u­late the explorato­ry desire of preschool chil­dren.

| Birth | Del­phine Cédru | Del­phine Chedru (Wiki­da­ta) |

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🗓️ Other Important Person Briefings

event	fig­ure	Details/Awards	Wikipedia link
born	Beat­rice Pon­celet (Béa­trice Pon­celet)	Swiss illus­tra­tor. (Based on…) I will be back on Sun­day the 39th. (Je reviendrai le dimanche 39) 1987 BIB Hon­orary AwardHis paint­ings are del­i­cate and often explore the inter­twin­ing of mem­o­ry and emo­tion.	B. Pon­celet
born	Christi­na Ras­trego (Cristi­na Las­trego)	Ital­ian artist. With The Cir­cu­lar Sto­ry (Rac­con­ton­doAward­ed 1977 BIB Hon­orary AwardShe has also made sig­nif­i­cant achieve­ments in ani­ma­tion pro­duc­tion and mul­ti­me­dia chil­dren’s books.	C. Las­trego