July 22: Today in the History of Children’s Books

🎂 Born 1948: Susan Eloise Hinton

An immor­tal Amer­i­can female writer and the found­ing moth­er of mod­ern young adult lit­er­a­ture (YA Lit­er­a­ture) (1948-). She is a tow­er­ing spir­i­tu­al icon in the his­to­ry of Amer­i­can lit­er­a­ture. Her debut nov­el, writ­ten when she was 16, com­plete­ly end­ed the pre­vi­ous false embell­ish­ment of chil­dren’s books for teenagers and she is revered as the “Moth­er of YA Nov­els”.

• A mon­u­men­tal achieve­ment that will last for gen­er­a­tions and reach the high­est heights of his­to­ry: Mod­ern YA Nov­el Supreme Canon Chas­ing the Gold­en Boy (The Out­sidersThe Tai­wanese edi­tion of “Lit­tle God­fa­ther” (pub­lished in 1967) is list­ed in “1001 Chil­dren’s Books” and has con­sis­tent­ly ranked high on the list of rec­om­mend­ed read­ing for all lev­els of schools in the Unit­ed States.
• Lit­er­ary sta­tus: Hin­ton, with her stark, steely real­ism and soci­o­log­i­cal­ly nuanced street lan­guage, chron­i­cles the class divide, vio­lent con­flicts, and life-or-death friend­ships between mar­gin­al­ized, grass­roots teenagers (Greasers) and wealthy chil­dren (Socs) in the 1960s. She por­trays with remark­able dig­ni­ty the anger, con­fu­sion, and unwa­ver­ing moral com­pass of these teenagers, firm­ly estab­lish­ing the high­est intel­lec­tu­al foun­da­tion in mod­ern youth lit­er­a­ture.

| Birth | Susan Eloise Hin­ton | SE Hin­ton (Wikipedia) |

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🎂 1881 – Born: Margery Williams

Mar­garet Williams Bian­co, an immor­tal British-Amer­i­can women writer and essay­ist (1881–1944), was a tow­er­ing fig­ure in ear­ly 20th-cen­tu­ry Amer­i­can chil­dren’s lit­er­a­ture and the anthro­po­mor­phic school of chil­dren’s play.

• Supreme hon­or and an immor­tal mon­u­ment: He won the award for his long real­is­tic mas­ter­piece, “The Road Blocked by Ice and Snow”. New­bery Hon­or, 1937His rep­re­sen­ta­tive philo­soph­i­cal works The Plush Bun­ny (The Vel­veteen Rab­bit(Pub­lished in 1922) Canon is list­ed as a must-read clas­sic for all chil­dren.
• Awards and rep­re­sen­ta­tive works: The Plush Bun­ny、Snow and Ice Block the Road (Win­ter­bound)。
• Lit­er­ary con­no­ta­tion: Williams’s writ­ing is imbued with an extreme­ly refined philo­soph­i­cal restraint and a noble human com­pas­sion. In “The Lit­tle Vel­vet Bun­ny,” she pro­found­ly explores the exis­ten­tial ques­tion of “what is Real”—when a toy is deeply loved by a child, loved to the point that its fur falls out and it becomes worn and tat­tered, it gains a soul and becomes “Real.” She endows chil­dren’s lit­er­a­ture with the high­est dig­ni­ty of life through the most real­is­tic and pure lan­guage.

| Birth | Margery Williams | Margery Williams (Wikipedia) |

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🎂 Born 1942: Mizumaru Anzai

Noboru Watan­abe (1942–2014), an immor­tal Japan­ese graph­ic artist, illus­tra­tor, and com­mer­cial design giant, was a high­ly respect­ed mas­ter of post­war East Asian min­i­mal­ist visu­al and child-cen­tered design. He was also the long-time col­lab­o­ra­tor of writer Haru­ki Muraka­mi.

• Time­less visu­al clas­sics for young chil­dren: Clang, clang, the train is com­ing! (がたんごとんがたんごとん)、“hairy” (ふわふわ(Haru­ki Murakami’s text), and “Splash, Splash, We’ve Reached the Sea­side”.
• Visu­al Aes­thet­ics: Anzai Mizu­maru com­plete­ly aban­doned com­plex and rigid mechan­i­cal per­spec­tive. He inno­v­a­tive­ly used seem­ing­ly min­i­mal­ist and casu­al cray­on and col­ored pen­cil lines, which were full of a high degree of con­trol over pla­nar com­po­si­tion, to vivid­ly depict the every­day scene of a lit­tle train car­ry­ing a milk bot­tle, apple, and paci­fi­er gur­gling along. Every fig­ure in his paint­ings is full of sim­ple child­like fun and a sense of breatha­bil­i­ty, and he has made great efforts to pro­tect the spir­i­tu­al right of young chil­dren to free asso­ci­a­tion.

| Birth | Mizu­maru Anzai | Anzai Mizu­maru (Wikipedia) |

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🎂 1941 – Born: Carole Byard

An immor­tal African Amer­i­can female graph­ic artist, fine art sculp­tor, and mas­ter of his­tor­i­cal real­ism illus­tra­tion (1941–2017). She was one of the most stead­fast female stan­dard-bear­ers in the Unit­ed States for visu­al equal­i­ty for minori­ties and in chil­dren’s his­tor­i­cal non­fic­tion illus­tra­tion.

• Supreme Award Hon­or: With the time­less his­tor­i­cal pic­ture book “Pick­ing Cot­ton,” he won the top prize. 1993 Calde­cott Hon­orAnd won the Coret­ta Scott King Award twice.
• Award-win­ning mon­u­ment: Pick­ing Cot­ton (Work­ing Cot­ton(By Sher­ley Anne Williams).
• Con­tri­bu­tions to visu­al arts: Byard com­plete­ly shat­tered the syco­phan­tic and mediocre design of tra­di­tion­al chil­dren’s books. In *The Cot­ton Pick­er*, she pio­neered the use of retro, rough char­coal sketch­es and extreme­ly wet, free­hand water­col­or wash­es through­out the book, vivid­ly depict­ing the ardu­ous labor of African Amer­i­can farm­ing fam­i­lies in cot­ton fields from dawn to dusk. With extreme­ly cold and pow­er­ful lines, she brought to life the dig­ni­ty of peo­ple of col­or and the order of fam­i­ly life amidst hard­ship, rais­ing a very high lev­el of ratio­nal­i­ty in chil­dren’s his­to­ry books.

| Birth | Car­ole Byard | Car­ole Byard (Wikipedia) |

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🎂 Born 1981: Tomáš Klepoch

A con­tem­po­rary Slo­va­kian graph­ic artist and mas­ter of fine print­mak­ing (1981). He is one of the visu­al heavy­weights who have amazed the inter­na­tion­al stage with his avant-garde print­mak­ing and graph­ic aes­thet­ics in 21st-cen­tu­ry East­ern Europe.

• Inter­na­tion­al high­est hon­or: With its wood­cut prints that reimag­ined philo­soph­i­cal and his­tor­i­cal mas­ter­pieces, fea­tur­ing a per­fect blend of clas­si­cal and mod­ern free­hand com­po­si­tions, it won the top prize. 2011 Bratisla­va Inter­na­tion­al Bien­ni­al of Illus­tra­tion (BIB) Gold­en Apple Award.
• Award-win­ning visu­al mas­ter­pieces: Philo­soph­i­cal Epic How I Became a Wise Man (Ako som sa stal mudr­comFirst edi­tion of the com­plete set of illus­tra­tions.

| Birth | Tomáš Kle­poch | [Tomáš Kle­poch (BIBIANA)]

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🎂 Born 1975: Aaron Frisch

A dis­tin­guished Amer­i­can author of non­fic­tion and fan­ta­sy lit­er­a­ture for chil­dren and a senior book edi­tor (1975).

• Supreme Inter­na­tion­al Hon­ors: With its ground­break­ing con­tem­po­rary urban psy­cho­log­i­cal real­ism mas­ter­piece, *Lit­tle Red Rid­ing Hood*, a cross-dis­ci­pli­nary col­lab­o­ra­tion with Ital­ian fine art pic­ture book mas­ter Rober­to Inno­cen­ti, it won a stun­ning award. 2014 Prix Sor­cières, the high­est prize for illus­trat­ed books in France..
• Award-win­ning mas­ter­pieces: Urban Lit­tle Red Rid­ing Hood (La Petite Fille en rouge / Eng­lish name The Girl in Red)。
• Lit­er­ary qual­i­ties: In this mas­ter­piece, Frisch bril­liant­ly places the clas­sic Lit­tle Red Rid­ing Hood fairy tale with­in the cold, noisy, and soci­o­log­i­cal­ly fraught mod­ern urban jun­gle. With remark­ably detached and razor-sharp prose, he guides young read­ers to exam­ine the temp­ta­tions, dan­gers, and self-pro­tec­tion with­in the mod­ern city, uphold­ing a dig­ni­fied and crit­i­cal intel­lec­tu­al stan­dard for chil­dren’s lit­er­a­ture.

| Birth | Aaron Frisch | Aaron Frisch (Wiki­da­ta) |

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🗓️ Parallel briefings from other award-winning creators

event	fig­ure	Details/Awards	Wikipedia/Data Links
Death	Car­men Martín Gaite	A Span­ish nov­el­ist, essay­ist, and recip­i­ent of the Nadal Prize and the Span­ish Nation­al Lit­er­a­ture Prize (1925–2000). She was a high­ly acclaimed queen of chil­dren’s and YA nar­ra­tives in con­tem­po­rary Span­ish-lan­guage lit­er­a­ture, best known for her time­less mas­ter­piece, *Lit­tle Red Rid­ing Hood in Man­hat­tan*, which per­fect­ly blends ele­ments of clas­si­cal fairy tales with the psy­cho­log­i­cal awak­en­ing of mod­ern New York urban women.Cape­ruci­ta en Man­hat­tanIt was includ­ed in “1001 Chil­dren’s Books”.	Car­men Martín Gaite
Death	J. Meade Falkn­er	John Mead Faulkn­er (1858–1932), an immor­tal British Victorian/Edwardian anti­quar­i­an col­lec­tor and his­tor­i­cal fic­tion nov­el­ist. His time­less clas­sic of sus­pense, *Mur­ray*, seam­less­ly blends metic­u­lous­ly detailed ancient wilder­ness geog­ra­phy, a mas­sive smug­gling oper­a­tion, and the chival­rous spir­it of a young hero.Moon­fleetIt was includ­ed in “1001 Chil­dren’s Books” and has been a must-read text for log­i­cal rea­son­ing among mid­dle school stu­dents world­wide for many years.	J. Meade Falkn­er
Death	John Ryan	Pirate Cap­tain Pag­worth (1921–2009), an immor­tal British 20th-cen­tu­ry graph­ic satire and ani­ma­tor. His clas­sic graph­ic nov­el, *Pirate Cap­tain Pag­worth*, is a time­less nation­al clas­sic, writ­ten entire­ly with ele­gant British pen and ink wash­es, vivid­ly depict­ing the pirate cap­tain’s dai­ly antics, wit­ty ban­ter, and down-to-earth humor.Cap­tain Pug­washIt was includ­ed in “1001 Chil­dren’s Books”.	John Ryan