April 23: Today in the history of children’s books

⚰️ April 23, 1996 — Died: P.L. Travers

Aus­tralian-born British writer and actress P.L. Tra­vers (1899–1996) Died. She cre­at­ed the most famous nan­ny char­ac­ter in the his­to­ry of chil­dren’s books—Mary Pop­pins, who came with the east wind car­ry­ing a par­rot-head­ed umbrel­la.

• Rep­re­sen­ta­tive works and achieve­ments:
  • The Mary Sis­ters Who Came with the Wind series (Mary Pop­pins): The first work was pub­lished in 1934 and was includ­ed in “1001 Chil­dren’s Books”.
  • Lit­er­ary sta­tus: Aunt Mary is not a docile nan­ny in the tra­di­tion­al sense; she is vain, strict, and mys­te­ri­ous. This com­plex per­son­al­i­ty com­plete­ly shat­tered the por­tray­al of the per­fect adult in chil­dren’s books at the time.
• Cul­tur­al influ­ence: Dis­ney adapt­ed it into the movie “Mary Pop­pins,” and although Tra­vers him­self did not entire­ly agree with the adap­ta­tion, it did make “Aunt Mary” a glob­al cul­tur­al icon.

| Passed Away | Pa. Lin Tra­vers | PL Tra­vers (Wikipedia) |

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🎂 Born April 23, 1971: Anne-Laure Bondoux

A high­ly influ­en­tial con­tem­po­rary French author of chil­dren’s lit­er­a­ture Anne-Lau­re Bon­du Born. Her writ­ing tran­scends the bound­aries between pure lit­er­a­ture and pop­u­lar lit­er­a­ture.

• Key Achieve­ments:
  • Twice award­ed the French Prix Sor­cières: Respec­tive­ly based on “Killer’s Tears》 or trans­la­tionGrow­ing Up（Les Larmes de l’as­sas­sin(2004) and TheWe will cross the storm-Nous tra­verserons des orages(2024) won the title twice.
• Lit­er­ary style: Bon­du excels at depict­ing psy­cho­log­i­cal strug­gles and emo­tion­al redemp­tion under extreme cir­cum­stances. “The Killer’s Tears” tells the sto­ry of a boy’s unusu­al bond with the mur­der­er of his par­ents, and its nar­ra­tive pow­er and intel­lec­tu­al depth have been high­ly praised by crit­ics.

| Birth | Anna-Lau­re Bon­dou | Anne-Lau­re Bon­doux (Wikipedia) |

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⚰️ April 23, 2018 — Died: Morton Schindel

Amer­i­can edu­ca­tor and pro­duc­er Mor­ton Sin­del He passed away in 1918 at the age of 100. He was a “bridge builder” con­nect­ing pic­ture book art and the film indus­try.

• Major achieve­ments:
  • Founder of West­on Woods Stu­dios: He is ded­i­cat­ed to adapt­ing clas­sic, high-qual­i­ty pic­ture books (such as those by Sendak) into high-qual­i­ty ani­mat­ed short films, and adheres to the prin­ci­ple of “respect­ing the orig­i­nal style”.
  • The Car­le Hon­or: He received the inau­gur­al Bridge Award in 2006 in recog­ni­tion of his out­stand­ing con­tri­bu­tions to pro­mot­ing cross-media read­ing.

| Deceased | Mor­ton Sin­del | Mor­ton Schin­del (Wikipedia) |

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⚰️ April 23, 2018 — Died: Alice Provensen

Amer­i­can illus­tra­tor and pic­ture book mas­ter Alice Proven­son He died in 1918–2018.

• Key Achieve­ments:
  • Calde­cott Medal: Her book, *A Glo­ri­ous Flight*, co-authored with her hus­band Mar­tin Provin­son, won a gold medal; her inde­pen­dent work, *[Title Miss­ing]*, was also men­tioned.Vis­it William Blake’s Inn-A Vis­it to William Blake’s Inn) won 1982 Calde­cott Hon­or.
  • The Car­le Hon­or: He received the Artist award in 2009.
• sta­tus: The Provin­sons are one of the most rep­re­sen­ta­tive cre­ative duos in the his­to­ry of Amer­i­can pic­ture books. Their works are known for their rig­or­ous his­tor­i­cal research and clas­si­cal poet­ic style.

| Deceased | Alice Proven­son | Alice Provensen (Wikipedia) |

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🗓️ Other Important Person Briefings

event	fig­ure	Details/Awards	Wikipedia link
born	Chris­t­ian Bru­el (Chris­t­ian Bru­el)	A pio­neer­ing French chil­dren’s book pub­lish­er. He has twice won awards. French Witch Awards(“Free Bear”, “Pho­to Album”).	C. Bru­el
born	Jen­ny Kows­ki Eva (Éva Janikovszky)	Hun­gar­i­an nation­al writer. His rep­re­sen­ta­tive work is…Who does this child resem­ble?It was includ­ed in “1001 Chil­dren’s Books” and observes the rela­tion­ship between adults and chil­dren from a humor­ous per­spec­tive.	Éva Janikovszky
born	Mary Jane Carr (Mary Jane Carr)	Amer­i­can author. Known for his nov­el depict­ing life in the North­west fron­tier.Young Mike from Van­cou­ver Fort》 won New­bery Sil­ver Medal, 1941.	Mary Jane Carr
Death	John Lon­zo Ander­son (Lon­zo Ander­son)	Amer­i­can writer. (Based on)Hal­loween par­tyWorks such as [title miss­ing] gained atten­tion in the mid-20th cen­tu­ry.	Lon­zo Ander­son