July 9th: Today in the History of Children’s Books

🎂 John Newbery, born in 1713.

The immor­tal British pub­lish­er and writer of the 18th cen­tu­ry, and the revered “Father of Chil­dren’s Lit­er­a­ture” (1713–1767) in the his­to­ry of chil­dren’s lit­er­a­ture. He was the core founder of the world’s chil­dren’s pub­lish­ing his­to­ry, pio­neer­ing the mod­ern par­a­digm of “treat­ing chil­dren as inde­pen­dent and autonomous read­ing sub­jects” and pub­lish­ing them as pure­ly artis­tic works in a com­mer­cial way.

• An epoch-mak­ing and immor­tal his­tor­i­cal mon­u­ment: Pub­lish the first tru­ly mean­ing­ful pic­ture book in human his­to­ry designed specif­i­cal­ly for chil­dren’s enter­tain­ment and men­tal devel­op­ment.Beau­ti­ful Lit­tle Pock­et Book (A Lit­tle Pret­ty Pock­et-BookPub­lished in 1744.
• His­tor­i­cal achieve­ments and indus­try lega­cy: New­bery defin­i­tive­ly end­ed the dark age since the Mid­dle Ages when chil­dren’s books were treat­ed as mere appendages to rigid reli­gious preach­ing and adult instruc­tion. With the ratio­nal spir­it of “trade and plumb,” he includ­ed small balls and pin­cush­ions with his books, trans­form­ing read­ing into one of child­hood’s ear­li­est intel­lec­tu­al inter­ac­tions. In 1922, the Amer­i­can Library Asso­ci­a­tion (ALA) estab­lished a pres­ti­gious glob­al hon­or for chil­dren’s lit­er­a­ture, named after him—“The New­bery Medal”In this way, we will for­ev­er remem­ber the inde­struc­tible mon­u­ment he erect­ed to defend the spir­i­tu­al inde­pen­dence and rights of child­hood.

| Birth | John New­bery | John New­bery (Wikipedia) |

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🎂 Born 1941: Nancy Farmer

An immor­tal Amer­i­can mas­ter of fantasy/science fic­tion for chil­dren and teenagers (1941). She is the queen of psy­cho­log­i­cal real­ism nar­ra­tive, a tow­er­ing fig­ure in con­tem­po­rary Eng­lish lit­er­a­ture on the top­ics of “the eth­i­cal cri­sis of cloning, the decon­struc­tion of total­i­tar­i­an­ism and the Afro­fu­tur­ist view of life”.

• The high­est Grand Slam hon­or: Three-time New­bery Hon­or recip­i­ent Award win­ner; two-time short­list­ed for the Nation­al Book Award; win­ner of the Prinz Prize for Lit­er­a­ture.
• Three time­less sci­ence fic­tion mas­ter­pieces:
• Scor­pi­on House (The House of the Scor­pi­on(Sil­ver Medal Win­ner, 2003): The mod­ern sci­ence fic­tion nov­el *Canon*. It tells the epic sto­ry of Matt, a boy born as a clone of a drug lord, who, fac­ing the cru­el removal of his organs as a “liv­ing organ con­tain­er,” relies on his unyield­ing spir­it, inde­pen­dent think­ing, and unwa­ver­ing adher­ence to human­i­ty to ulti­mate­ly break free from his cage and fight back against the total­i­tar­i­an regime.
• Core Award-Win­ning Clas­sics:Ears, Eyes, and Arms (The Ear, the Eye, and the Arm(Sil­ver Medal Win­ner, 1995)Dis­as­ter Girl (A Girl Named Dis­as­ter(Sil­ver Medal Win­ner, 1997)

| Birth | Nan­cy Farmer | Nan­cy Farmer (author) (Wikipedia) |

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🎂 Born 1982: Daniel Nayeri

Iran­ian-Amer­i­can author and pub­lish­er of con­tem­po­rary young adult lit­er­a­ture (1982). He is a ris­ing star of col­or nar­ra­tive in the gold­en age of West­ern chil­dren’s real­ism in the 21st cen­tu­ry, ded­i­cat­ed to dis­man­tling prej­u­dices and class seg­re­ga­tion in adult soci­ety using the purest oral tra­di­tions of the Silk Road.

• Supreme Inter­na­tion­al Hon­ors: With its epic his­tor­i­cal adven­ture mas­ter­piece, “The Mul­ti­ple Assas­si­na­tions of Samir the Dream Mer­chant,” it soared to the top, win­ning the crown in a stun­ning fash­ion. 2024 New­bery Hon­or.
• Time­less mas­ter­pieces: The Mul­ti­ple Assas­si­na­tion Attempts Against Samir, the Dream Ven­dor (The Many Assas­si­na­tions of Samir, the Sell­er of Dreams), and the high­ly mag­i­cal real­ist nov­el *The Child Who Made a Deal with the Dev­il* (Anoth­er Faust)。
• Lit­er­ary qual­i­ties: Nayeli’s writ­ing is filled with an extreme­ly rugged sense of his­tor­i­cal tex­ture and a dry, Mid­dle East­ern folk humor. In “Samir the Dream Trad­er,” he vivid­ly por­trays a strange mer­chant who trav­els in 11th-cen­tu­ry Silk Road car­a­vans, mak­ing a liv­ing by sell­ing “day­dreams and hopes,” and the mutu­al sup­port and com­pan­ion­ship between him and a ser­vant boy who des­per­ate­ly pro­tects him. With a high degree of lit­er­ary and artis­tic seri­ous­ness, he upholds the intel­lec­tu­al height of con­tem­po­rary mul­ti­cul­tur­al chil­dren’s lit­er­a­ture.

| Birth | Daniel Nay­eri | Daniel Nay­eri (Wikipedia) |

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🎂 Born in 1928: Oleg Zotov

Oleg Kon­stan­ti­novich Zotov (1928–1984), an immor­tal nation­al trea­sure of the Sovi­et Union, was one of the lead­ing visu­al pio­neers who spear­head­ed the inter­na­tion­al­iza­tion of East­ern Euro­pean fine art pic­ture book aes­thet­ics in the mid-to-late 20th cen­tu­ry.

• Inter­na­tion­al high­est hon­or: With its epic illus­tra­tions that reimag­ined a clas­sic his­tor­i­cal dra­ma, brim­ming with the dynam­ic, expres­sive style of clas­si­cal Slav­ic art and the metic­u­lous line work of Cen­tral Euro­pean art, it rose to the top and won [award name/title]. Gold­en Apple Award at the 1981 Bratisla­va Inter­na­tion­al Bien­ni­al of Illus­tra­tions (BIB).
• Award-win­ning mon­u­ment: Pushk­in’s Immor­tal Fairy Tale Poems “fairy tale” (Skaz­kiFirst edi­tion of the com­plete set of illus­tra­tions.
• Visu­al Aes­thet­ics: Zotoff com­plete­ly shat­tered the mediocre edu­ca­tion of the Vic­to­ri­an era. Through­out his life, he adhered to the ancient dry screen print­ing and the rough lines of col­lage, which have the feel of heavy indus­try, trans­form­ing the spa­tial charm of stage dra­ma into an indomitable gaze at the dig­ni­ty of life and folk wis­dom, which is high­ly regard­ed by the book indus­try around the world.

| Birth | Oleg Zotov | Олег Зотов (Wikipedia) |

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⚰️ 1998 – Died: James Flora

Jim Flo­ra (1914–1998), an immor­tal Amer­i­can graph­ic artist, pio­neer of jazz record cov­er illus­tra­tion, and author of absur­dist pic­ture books for young chil­dren, was a visu­al pio­neer in the mid-20th cen­tu­ry who seam­less­ly blend­ed “Cubism, mod­ern pop jazz rhythms, and hilar­i­ous child­like fun” across Amer­i­ca.

• Time­less clas­sics:
• A mas­ter­piece of free­hand col­or paint­ing and lyri­cal expres­sion:The Amaz­ing Fire­works Fam­i­ly (The Fab­u­lous Fire­work Fam­i­lyPub­lished in 1955, the book uses extreme­ly bright col­ors full of Mex­i­can local fla­vor and strong heavy indus­tri­al lines to record the process of a fam­i­ly stick­ing to tra­di­tion­al crafts and main­tain­ing order.
• Crazy Cubism Mile­stone:The Cow Sneezed (The Day the Cow Sneezed)。
• Visu­al con­tri­bu­tion: Flo­ra com­plete­ly depart­ed from the kitsch and rigid depic­tions found in chil­dren’s books. The cows, trains, and humans in his writ­ing fea­ture exag­ger­at­ed geo­met­ric decon­struc­tions and freely flow­ing, dynam­ic lines, trans­form­ing read­ing into a visu­al feast and dig­ni­fied­ly defend­ing the high­est spir­i­tu­al author­i­ty of child­hood mis­chief and wild imag­i­na­tion.

| Passed Away | James Flo­ra | James Flo­ra (Wikipedia) |

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🗓️ Parallel briefings from other award-winning authors

event	fig­ure	Details/Awards	Wikipedia/Data Links
Death	Bar­bara Robin­son	A promi­nent Amer­i­can female writer of psy­cho­log­i­cal real­ism about chil­dren in the mid-to-late 20th cen­tu­ry (1927–2013). Her time­less mas­ter­piece, *The Best Christ­mas Parade*, com­plete­ly over­turns the rigid didac­ti­cism of tra­di­tion­al West­ern Christ­mas, telling the sto­ry of six “bad kids” from the slums who con­stant­ly fight and steal, how they storm into a church to steal com­mu­nion, yet ulti­mate­ly achieve true human­i­tar­i­an redemp­tion through their unbi­ased, grass­roots inno­cence in a Christ­mas parade.The Best Christ­mas Pageant EverIt has con­sis­tent­ly ranked high on the list of best-sell­ing books in major pub­lic libraries for many years.	Bar­bara Robin­son (Wikipedia)
Death	Patri­cia Beat­ty	A renowned Amer­i­can female his­tor­i­cal real­ist nov­el­ist (1922–1991). Through­out her life, she wrote with a detached, soci­o­log­i­cal­ly nuanced approach to his­tor­i­cal research, exem­pli­fied by her mas­ter­piece, *Run Char­lie*.Charley Skedad­dleThrough the poignant sto­ry of a 12-year-old New York boy’s trans­for­ma­tion into a drum­mer on the bat­tle­field of the Civ­il War, the book, with the restraint of pure lit­er­a­ture, helps teenagers devel­op a crit­i­cal mind­set that reflects on total­i­tar­i­an­ism and the rigid adher­ence to moral order.	Patri­cia Beat­ty (Wikipedia)