July 12: Today in the History of Children’s Books

🎂 1944 – Born: Ulf Stark

Swe­den’s immor­tal nation­al trea­sure, a mas­ter of chil­dren’s lit­er­a­ture, a screen­writer, and a voice for the mind of the times (1944–2017). He was a high­ly respect­ed mas­ter of psy­cho­log­i­cal real­ism in the world of chil­dren’s lit­er­a­ture, whose extreme­ly strong yet com­pas­sion­ate writ­ing, imbued with sil­very moon­light, com­plete­ly changed the spir­i­tu­al depth of mod­ern bridge books and chil­dren’s nov­els.

• Supreme Inter­na­tion­al Hon­ors: Suc­cess­ful­ly short­list­ed The final­ist for the Hans Chris­t­ian Ander­sen Award (HCAA) for Best Writer.She has won the Astrid Lind­gren Prize from Swe­den and the Nordic Chil­dren’s Book Award.
• An endur­ing and supreme mon­u­ment:
• The high­est ide­al is to cher­ish life and death and to be togeth­er across gen­er­a­tions (Canon).Can You Whis­tle, Johan­na? (Alter­na­tive trans­la­tion: The Whistling Boy)Kan du viss­la Johan­na?The sto­ry tells of a boy with­out a grand­fa­ther who “adopts” a lone­ly old man in a nurs­ing home. Dur­ing their brief time togeth­er, the boy learns to whis­tle and ulti­mate­ly faces the old man’s pass­ing, using unpar­al­leled sin­cer­i­ty to over­come the grief of los­ing a loved one—a life epic.
• Core philo­soph­i­cal clas­sics:Dad Takes Me to See the Uni­verse (När papap­pa visade mej värld­sall­tetIt explores the ratio­nal bal­ance between the vast uni­verse and a piece of dog poop on the ground in an extreme­ly refined man­ner.
• The Final Song:The Last Bot­tle of Blue­ber­ry Jam (Rym­lin­gar­na), and “The Unfor­get­table Adven­ture of Two Best Friends” (Märklin och turbin)。

| Birth | Ulf Stark | Ulf Stark (Wikipedia) |

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⚰️ 2020 — Passed away: Joanna Cole

An immor­tal Amer­i­can female sci­ence writer for chil­dren and edi­tor-in-chief of advanced chil­dren’s sci­ence books (1944–2020). She was a revered “god­moth­er of sci­ence enlight­en­ment” in the his­to­ry of non-fic­tion inter­ac­tive aes­thet­ics for young chil­dren world­wide, chang­ing the way chil­dren around the world learn about geol­o­gy, astron­o­my, and human anato­my.

• A mas­ter­piece that will last for­ev­er: The Mag­ic School Bus series (The Mag­ic School Bus series(Illus­tra­tion by Bruce Degen)
• Inter­na­tion­al Hon­ors and Con­tri­bu­tions: Recip­i­ent of the French Witch­es’ Prize Spe­cial Hon­or and the Wash­ing­ton Post Non­fic­tion Chil­dren’s Lit­er­a­ture Award, Cor­nelia Cole inno­v­a­tive­ly cre­at­ed the eccen­tric “Ms. Friz­zle,” dressed in bizarrely pat­terned clothes, who leads chil­dren in a school bus that can trans­form at will, soar­ing through the clouds, ven­tur­ing into the earth­’s core, or tra­vers­ing blood ves­sels. With dry humor, rig­or­ous math­e­mat­i­cal and sci­en­tif­ic details, and hilar­i­ous dia­logue, she rewrites the rigid text­book into a visu­al feast, dig­ni­fied­ly defend­ing child­hood curios­i­ty and mate­ri­al­is­tic log­i­cal think­ing.

| Died | Joan­na Cole | Joan­na Cole (Wikipedia) |

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🎂 1871 – Born: Anne Carroll Moore

An immor­tal female librar­i­an, crit­ic, and pio­neer of mod­ern chil­dren’s read­ing ser­vices in the Unit­ed States in the ear­ly 20th cen­tu­ry (1871–1961). She was an indomitable woman in the his­to­ry of chil­dren’s book pub­lish­ing and pub­lic library ser­vices, and she head­ed the chil­dren’s sec­tion of the New York Pub­lic Library (NYPL) for near­ly half a cen­tu­ry, and was known as the chief “gate­keep­er” of high-qual­i­ty chil­dren’s books in the Unit­ed States at that time.

• Indus­try mile­stones and New­bery Medal hon­ors: The endur­ing illus­trat­ed biog­ra­phy of Miss Moore (Miss Moore Thought Oth­er­wiseThis work pro­vides a pro­found account of her his­toric achieve­ment in break­ing down soci­etal prej­u­dices and bring­ing chil­dren into pub­lic read­ing rooms. Her own rep­re­sen­ta­tive work, *Nicholas: A Christ­mas Tale of Man­hat­tan*, won an award. New­bery Hon­or, 1925.
• A time­less mas­ter­piece: Nicholas: A Christ­mas Tale in Man­hat­tan (Nicholas: A Man­hat­tan Christ­mas Sto­ry)。

| Birth | Anne Car­roll Moore | Anne Car­roll Moore (Wikipedia) |

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⚰️ 2003 – Death: Lieselotte Schwarz

An immor­tal Ger­man female graph­ic artist, mas­ter of print­mak­ing, and queen of sur­re­al­ist pic­ture books (1930–2003). She was a leg­endary fig­ure who brought the aes­thet­ics of fine art pic­ture books in Cen­tral Europe to the inter­na­tion­al stage after the war, and a tow­er­ing mas­ter in the fields of col­or and psy­cho­log­i­cal sub­con­scious­ness.

• Inter­na­tion­al high­est hon­or (high­est lau­rel wreath): With its clas­sic mas­ter­piece that sub­verts the visu­al decon­struc­tion of human dreams, it rose to the top and won the award. Grand Prix at the 1973 Bratisla­va Inter­na­tion­al Bien­ni­al of Illus­tra­tions (BIB).
• Award­ed an immor­tal mon­u­ment: The Dream Builders (Der Traum­mach­er)。
• Visu­al Aes­thet­ics: Schwartz com­plete­ly reject­ed the syco­phan­tic and mediocre designs of tra­di­tion­al chil­dren’s books. Through­out her life, she adhered to the ancient hand-screen print­ing, the rough tex­ture of the prints, and the expres­sion­ist light and shad­ow, trans­form­ing medieval clas­si­cal mythol­o­gy into a tran­quil con­tem­pla­tion of the inde­pen­dent dig­ni­ty of life, earn­ing her the deep respect of the glob­al book col­lect­ing com­mu­ni­ty.

| Passed Away | Lieselotte Schwarz | Lieselotte Schwarz (Wikipedia) |

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🎂 1967 – Born: Anne Brouillard

A Bel­gian nation­al trea­sure-lev­el female graph­ic artist and a mas­ter of real­is­tic land­scape and spa­tial lyri­cal pic­ture books (1967). She is a visu­al queen with an extreme­ly high rep­u­ta­tion in the con­tem­po­rary Euro­pean chil­dren’s lit­er­a­ture scene in the extreme fields of black and white sin­gle-line hatch­ing and soft water­col­or thin appli­ca­tion.

• Inter­na­tion­al high­est hon­or: With his clas­sic real­is­tic mas­ter­piece “The Wolf’s Smile,” he won the pres­ti­gious award. Gold­en Apple Award at the 1993 Bratisla­va Inter­na­tion­al Bien­ni­al of Illus­tra­tion (BIB).
• Time­less mas­ter­pieces: The Wolf’s Smile (Le sourire du loup), the grand fan­ta­sy epic “The King­dom of Xin­tia: Search­ing for the Red-Clad Wiz­ard“Le pays des Chin­tiens: La Grande Forêt(and the heart­warm­ing ever­green clas­sic “Nino the Lit­tle Bear,” which already has a Chi­nese ver­sion)Illus­trat­ed for Zola’s chil­dren’s sto­ry col­lec­tionCat Par­adise.
• Visu­al Art Fea­tures: Bruyal’s paint­ing style is both pow­er­ful and ethe­re­al. She is extreme­ly skilled at cap­tur­ing the move­ment of the wind, the breath of the trees, and the dap­pled light and shad­ow on the old floor with her brush, using the ulti­mate in pure art visu­als to sup­port the intel­lec­tu­al height of her ear­ly psy­cho­log­i­cal and nature non-fic­tion works.

| Birth | Anne Brouil­lard | Anne Brouil­lard (Wikipedia) |

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⚰️ 2024 — Passed away: Tonke Dragt

Anto­nia Johan­na Draket (1930–2024), an immor­tal nation­al trea­sure of Dutch wom­en’s lit­er­a­ture and graph­ic illus­tra­tor, was a tow­er­ing fig­ure in the sec­ond half of the 20th cen­tu­ry Dutch-lan­guage lit­er­a­ture, revered for her “clas­si­cal chival­ric nar­ra­tive and anti-total­i­tar­i­an alle­go­ry.” She was a recip­i­ent of the Dutch Nation­al Chil­dren’s and Youth Lit­er­a­ture Award.

• An epic mon­u­ment that will last for­ev­er: A Let­ter to the King (De brief voor de kon­ingPub­lished in 1962, it was includ­ed in “1001 Chil­dren’s Books” and is con­sid­ered the great­est chil­dren’s nov­el in Dutch his­to­ry, win­ning the “Gold­en Brush Award” half-cen­tu­ry supreme prize.
• Lit­er­ary sta­tus: Drack­ett spent her ado­les­cence in a Japan­ese con­cen­tra­tion camp, a peri­od of depri­va­tion and impris­on­ment that forged the steely calm­ness, lit­er­ary restraint, and pride in her writ­ing. In *Let­ters to the King*, she recounts the panoram­ic his­to­ry of Tirio, a young aspir­ing knight who aban­dons his knight­hood cer­e­mo­ny to escort a secret let­ter con­cern­ing the life and death of a neigh­bor­ing coun­try, brav­ing the blood and tears of war. With the noblest clas­si­cal prose, she vivid­ly por­trays the moral reflec­tions, inde­pen­dence, respon­si­bil­i­ty, and dig­ni­ty of a group of young peo­ple.

| Passed Away | Tonke Dragt | Tonke Dragt (Wikipedia) |

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🗓️ Parallel briefings from other award-winning creators

event	fig­ure	Details/Awards	Wikipedia/Data Links
Death	Fred Mar­celli­no	An immor­tal Amer­i­can graph­ic artist and mas­ter of book lay­out aes­thet­ics in the late 20th cen­tu­ry (1939–2001). He is known for his style, which per­fect­ly blends Nether­lan­dish clas­si­cal pas­tel col­ors with Ital­ian free­hand com­po­si­tion, as exem­pli­fied by his time­less clas­sic, *Puss in Boots*.Puss in BootsThe bor­der­less, dou­ble-page visu­al graph­ics cre­at­ed by [the artist] won [a prize]. 1991 Calde­cott Hon­orHe was also the most ratio­nal illus­tra­tor in the first edi­tion of E.B. White’s famous nov­el “The Trum­pet of the Swan”.	Fred Mar­celli­no (Wikipedia)
Death	Jiří Běhounek	A Czecho­slo­va­kian mas­ter of graph­ic art and print­mak­ing (1929–2005). Through­out his life, he adhered to the core Cen­tral Euro­pean tra­di­tion of hard-edged pen-and-ink hatch­ing and rough oil print­ing tech­niques. His mon­u­men­tal non-fic­tion work, *The Jew­ish Sto­ry*, a his­tor­i­cal work pre­serv­ing the cul­tur­al roots of eth­nic minori­ties, is a tes­ta­ment to this.Jew­ish talesThe ini­tial illus­tra­tion, filled with the blank spaces of stage the­ater and metic­u­lous com­po­si­tion, won the top prize. Gold­en Apple Award at the 1987 Bratisla­va Inter­na­tion­al Bien­ni­al of Illus­tra­tion (BIB).	Jiří Běhounek (Wikipedia)
born	Claire d’Har­court	A promi­nent con­tem­po­rary French female graph­ic artist and the queen of non-fic­tion art edu­ca­tion for chil­dren (1960). She com­plete­ly shat­tered the mediocre, didac­tic design of tra­di­tion­al chil­dren’s art edu­ca­tion, cre­at­ing a ground­break­ing mas­ter­piece of mod­ern art edu­ca­tion: *From Roost­er to Don­key: Ani­mals Telling the Sto­ry of Art*, a work of inter­ac­tive visu­al dis­cov­ery and mon­tage-style cross-dis­ci­pli­nary col­lage.Du coq à l’âne), and won the cham­pi­onship. 2003 Prix Sor­cières, the high­est non-fic­tion award in France..	Claire d’Har­court (Wikipedia)
born	Isabelle Bournier	A renowned French female his­to­ri­an and chil­dren’s non­fic­tion writer (1963). Through­out her life, she approached her writ­ing with an almost obses­sive aca­d­e­m­ic rig­or, a com­mit­ment to doc­u­men­tary equal­i­ty, and an anthro­po­log­i­cal per­spec­tive. Her award-win­ning epic nov­el, *Peo­ple in the Alger­ian War*, a work that unvar­nish­es the raw real­i­ties of life and focus­es on the strug­gles of ordi­nary peo­ple amidst geopo­lit­i­cal clash­es, is a tes­ta­ment to this.Des hommes dans la guerre d’Al­gérie), suc­cess­ful­ly reached the sum­mit and won 2011 Prix Sor­cières, the high­est prize for fiction/nonfiction in France..	Isabelle Bournier (Wikipedia)
born	Lucy Fitch Perkins	An immor­tal Amer­i­can female geo­g­ra­ph­er of the ear­ly 20th cen­tu­ry and a pio­neer of cross-cul­tur­al real­ism for chil­dren’s fic­tion (1865–1937). Through­out her life, she ded­i­cat­ed her­self to break­ing down the iso­la­tion and racial prej­u­dices of main­stream Amer­i­ca on the eve of World War I, using the clean­est char­coal sketch­es and del­i­cate, ver­nac­u­lar lan­guage to cre­ate the world-renowned “Twins” series. Her mas­ter­piece is *The Dutch Twins*.The Dutch TwinsWith its most con­sid­er­ate and lev­el gaze at the ecol­o­gy and scenery of for­eign lands, it was includ­ed in “1001 Chil­dren’s Books”.	Lucy Fitch Perkins (Wikipedia)
Death	Joan Lin­gard	A titan of British female-cen­tric real­ist youth lit­er­a­ture and recip­i­ent of the Order of the British Empire (MBE) (1932–2022), she pow­er­ful­ly doc­u­ment­ed the inter­gen­er­a­tional con­flict and reli­gious divi­sions in North­ern Ire­land with her sweep­ing soci­o­log­i­cal real­ism. Her immor­tal epic mas­ter­piece, *Cross­ing the Bar­ri­er*, tells the sto­ry of a Catholic boy and a Protes­tant girl cross­ing the Pales­tin­ian bar­ri­cades to uphold their shared order.Across the Bar­ri­cadesIt was includ­ed in “1001 Chil­dren’s Books”.	Joan Lin­gard (Wikipedia)
Death	Jim Kjel­gaard	James Arthur C. Gergel­go­ld (1910–1959), a renowned Amer­i­can author of mod­ern his­tor­i­cal wildlife adven­ture nov­els, was a mas­ter of hard­core nar­ra­tives that blend­ed canine ecol­o­gy, wilder­ness sur­vival, and youth­ful resilience. His time­less clas­sic, *Big Red*, tells the sto­ry of a boy and his Irish Set­ter uphold­ing order and bat­tling the harsh­ness of the Rocky Moun­tains.Big RedIt has con­sis­tent­ly ranked high on the must-read lists for ratio­nal read­ers in major libraries.	Jim Kjel­gaard (Wikipedia)