Bridge of Ajia

June 7th: Today in the History of Children’s Books

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🎂 Born 1939: Volker Pfüller

A Ger­man nation­al trea­sure-lev­el visu­al artist, stage design­er, and graph­ic illus­tra­tor (1939–2020). He was one of the spir­i­tu­al god­fa­thers of mod­ern Ger­man-speak­ing illus­tra­tion, and taught at the Leipzig Acad­e­my of Visu­al Arts for many years, exert­ing a pro­found influ­ence on con­tem­po­rary Euro­pean poster design and pic­ture book aes­thet­ics.

  • High­est Hon­or: Award­ed 2019 Ger­man Youth Lit­er­a­ture Prize (DJLP) Life­time Achieve­ment Spe­cial Award(Son­der­preis Gesamtwerk Illus­tra­tion).
  • Rep­re­sen­ta­tive works:
  • Ear­ly clas­sics:“Mag­ic House” (Das Zauber­haus(1979)The Yel­low Bus (Ein gel­ber Omnibus(1987, in col­lab­o­ra­tion with author Walther Petri).
  • Visu­al Art Mas­ter­pieces:The Goat in a Tuxe­do (Ziegen­bock im Braten­rock)、Kas­par Pup­pet (Kasperlpup­pen(2010).
  • Artis­tic Style: Pfeller’s use of col­or is extreme­ly bold and unre­strained, and his com­po­si­tions have a strong Ger­man Expres­sion­ist the­atri­cal feel. He was extreme­ly skilled in using silkscreen, wood­cut, and rough char­coal lines. The fig­ures and ani­mals in his paint­ings are exag­ger­at­ed, even with a touch of grotesque and clum­sy humor, but under the impact of large blocks of col­or, they reveal a pow­er­ful and pro­found aes­thet­ic impact.

| Birth | Volk­er Pfüller | Volk­er Pfüller (Wiki­da­ta) |

⚰️ 2020 — Passed away: Seiichi Tabata

An immor­tal Japan­ese pic­ture book author and illus­tra­tor (1930–2020). He was a lead­ing fig­ure in post­war Japan­ese real­ism, who “tru­ly stood from the child’s per­spec­tive and defend­ed the child’s psy­cho­log­i­cal rights.”

  • His­tor­i­cal sig­nif­i­cance: It was includ­ed in the Kid­slit Canon anthol­o­gy in 2026.
  • A mas­ter­piece for pos­ter­i­ty:
  • Adven­ture in the Clos­et (おしいれのぼうけんPub­lished in 1974, with a script co-writ­ten by Taro­hi Furu­ta: One of the undis­put­ed “three pil­lars” of Japan­ese post­war pic­ture book his­to­ry, with cumu­la­tive sales of mil­lions of copies. It tells the epic psy­cho­log­i­cal adven­ture of two naughty kinder­garten boys who, after being locked in a clos­et by their teacher, use their imag­i­na­tion to over­come their fear and fight against “Grand­ma Mouse” in the dark.
  • Oth­er key rep­re­sen­ta­tive works:Nine Lit­tle Pirates and the Dump Truck Prin­ci­pal (ダンプえんちょうやっつけた)、“Go For­ward, Iron Buck­et!” (だんち5级がぼくのうち)、A Lit­tle Secret (ひ・み・つ)。
  • Visu­al Aes­thet­ics: Through­out his life, Sei­ichi Taba­ta opposed the “over­ly sweet­en­ing” or “imag­i­nary puri­ty” of child­hood. His black pen­cil hatch­ing and water­col­ors pos­sess an earthy tex­ture, and the chil­dren he depict­ed are always sweaty, with run­ny noses, and their eyes sparkling with stub­born­ness, rebel­lion, and fear. With his most pro­found brush­strokes, he proved that chil­dren’s friend­ships, fears, and strug­gles pos­sess the same dig­ni­ty as those of the adult world.

| Passed Away | Sei­ichi Taba­ta | Sei­ichi Taba­ta (Wikipedia) |

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