July 23: Today in the History of Children’s Books

⚰️ 2012 – Passed away: Margaret Mahy

A leg­endary fig­ure in New Zealand’s chil­dren’s lit­er­a­ture, and a recip­i­ent of the Order of New Zealand (1936–2012). She was a tow­er­ing mas­ter of mag­i­cal real­ism nar­ra­tive in the long his­to­ry of chil­dren’s lit­er­a­ture, who, through­out her life, rev­o­lu­tion­ized the spir­i­tu­al depth of mod­ern chil­dren’s fan­ta­sy lit­er­a­ture with her exquis­ite lan­guage, rich in musi­cal char­ac­ter and pro­found psy­cho­log­i­cal insights.

• The high­est Grand Slam hon­or: 2006 Hans Chris­t­ian Ander­sen Award (HCAA) for Best WriterWin­ner;He has won the Carnegie Medal twice.(1982, 1984).
• An immor­tal mas­ter­piece:
• Carnegie’s Dou­ble Crown Mon­u­ment:The Mag­ic Fam­i­ly (The Haunt­ingSuper­nat­ur­al psy­cho­log­i­cal growth clas­sics Meta­mor­pho­sis (The Changeover)。
• Ever­green Kids Fun Canon:Lion on the Grass (A Lion in the Mead­ow)、My Pet is a Drag­on (The Drag­on of an Ordi­nary Fam­i­ly)。
• Lit­er­ary sta­tus: Mei Xi’s writ­ing is filled with aston­ish­ing poet­ry and cool ratio­nal­i­ty. In “Meta­mor­pho­sis,” she stun­ning­ly blends the mod­ern cityscape of New Zealand, ancient witch­craft metaphors, and a young girl’s vol­un­tary “trans­for­ma­tion” rit­u­al to save her broth­er from a demon drain­ing his life force. With the detached restraint of pure lit­er­a­ture, she vivid­ly por­trays the inde­pen­dence, respon­si­bil­i­ty, and integri­ty of a young boy, uphold­ing the high­est ideals of chil­dren’s fan­ta­sy nov­els with great dig­ni­ty.

| Passed Away | Mar­garet Mahy | Mar­garet Mahy (Wikipedia) |

---

🎂 Born 1964: Tadashi Akiyama

A famous mod­ern Japan­ese chil­dren’s pic­ture book author and car­toon­ist (1964).

• A time­less clas­sic of psy­cho­log­i­cal real­ism for young chil­dren: Egg Broth­er Series (Tam­a­go-nii-chan)、The Stone Pig Nev­er Gives Up (いしぶたくん), and “Go to Sleep” (はやくねてよ)。
• Cre­ative Fea­tures: Tadashi Akiya­ma is excep­tion­al­ly skilled at using seem­ing­ly rough and casu­al yet remark­ably refined and dynam­ic lines to pre­cise­ly cap­ture the sub­tle psy­chol­o­gy of young chil­dren dur­ing their growth. In “Egg Broth­er,” he vivid­ly depicts a chick that has already grown wings but refus­es to hatch because it is attached to the secu­ri­ty inside the eggshell, ten­der­ly por­tray­ing the del­i­cate psy­cho­log­i­cal strug­gle between a child’s depen­dence on the fam­i­ly’s shel­tered envi­ron­ment and their desire to inde­pen­dent­ly explore the world.

| Birth | Tadashi Akiya­ma | Akiya­ma Kuang (Wikipedia) |

---

🎂 Born 1981: Lisa Aisato

A promi­nent con­tem­po­rary Nor­we­gian female graph­ic artist and a star of cross-dis­ci­pli­nary pic­ture books that blend real­ism and dream­like themes (1981).

• Rep­re­sen­ta­tive works: Odysseus is an Egg (ODD ER ET EGG)、Snow Angel (SNØSØSTEREN(by Maja Lunde), and Luna’s Fish (EN FISK TIL LUNA)。
• Visu­al Aes­thet­ics: Eisato is an excep­tion­al­ly bril­liant visu­al poet in the con­tem­po­rary Euro­pean pic­ture book world. She is extreme­ly skilled at using large areas of high­ly sat­u­rat­ed, extreme­ly wet, and tex­tured water­col­or and dig­i­tal paint­ing to vivid­ly depict the sen­si­tiv­i­ty, vul­ner­a­bil­i­ty, lone­li­ness, and ulti­mate rec­on­cil­i­a­tion with self-inde­pen­dence of chil­dren, cre­at­ing a panoram­ic view of life that enjoys high acclaim in the inter­na­tion­al book mar­ket.

| Birth | Lisa Aisato | Lisa Aisato (Wikipedia) |

---

🎂 1923 – Born: Thea Beckman

A Dutch 20th-cen­tu­ry female his­tor­i­cal real­ist and sci­ence fic­tion writer (1923–2004).

• Canon: A Time­less Lega­cy The Cru­saders in Jeans (Kruis­tocht in spijker­broek(Pub­lished in 1973) It was includ­ed in “1001 Chil­dren’s Books”.
• Rep­re­sen­ta­tive works: Give Me a Piece of SkyGeef Me De Ruimte), The Gold­en Fleece of Thule (Het Gulden Vlies Van Thule).
• Lit­er­ary con­no­ta­tion: Beck­man’s writ­ing is pow­er­ful, full of math­e­mat­i­cal log­ic and a sense of his­tor­i­cal detail. His mas­ter­piece, *The Cru­saders in Jeans*, tells the epic sto­ry of a 15-year-old con­tem­po­rary boy who acci­den­tal­ly trav­els back to the Mid­dle Ages in 1212 through a time machine. Amidst the smoke and chaos of war, he leads tens of thou­sands of chil­dren through Europe, uphold­ing human­i­tar­i­an order and the prin­ci­ples of ratio­nal sur­vival. The work is hailed as one of the high­est pil­lars of Dutch-lan­guage chil­dren’s his­tor­i­cal fic­tion.

| Birth | Thea Beck­man | Thea Beck­man (Wikipedia) |

---

🎂 Born in 1981: Cho Eunyoung

A con­tem­po­rary South Kore­an graph­ic artist and a lead­ing fig­ure in fine art pic­ture books (1981), her Kore­an name is 조은영. She is one of the lead­ing visu­al pio­neers who have brought Asian pic­ture book aes­thet­ics to the world stage in the 21st cen­tu­ry.

• Inter­na­tion­al high­est hon­or (high­est lau­rel wreath): With the clas­sic real­is­tic mas­ter­piece “Run, Toto!”, they soared to the top and won amaz­ing awards. Grand Prix at the 2011 Bratisla­va Inter­na­tion­al Bien­ni­al of Illus­tra­tion (BIB).
• Award-win­ning, immor­tal visu­al mon­u­ment: Run, Toto! (Run run Toto! / Kore­an name 달려토토).
• Visu­al Art Fea­tures: Zhao Eny­ingCom­plete­ly aban­don­ing mod­ern dig­i­tal col­or­ing, in “Run, Toto!”, she inno­v­a­tive­ly uses hand­made lith­o­graphs and thick acrylic prints with a strong sense of heavy indus­tri­al his­to­ry through­out the book. With a stun­ning inter­play of micro and macro per­spec­tives, she vivid­ly depicts a lit­tle girl’s sub­con­scious visu­al panora­ma as she gazes at the run­ning hors­es and the fren­zied crowd at the race­track, giv­ing ear­ly child­hood pic­ture books the high­est lev­el of ratio­nal­i­ty and visu­al dig­ni­ty.

| Birth | Zhao Eny­ing Eun­y­oung Cho

---

🎂 Born 1971: Pavel Tatarnikau

Belarus’s immor­tal nation­al trea­sure-lev­el graph­ic artist, a mas­ter of water­col­or and print­mak­ing (1971). He was a high­ly acclaimed visu­al icon in the field of East­ern Euro­pean clas­si­cal epic pic­ture books and mytho­log­i­cal reimag­in­ings from the late 20th to the 21st cen­tu­ry.

• Inter­na­tion­al high­est hon­or: Win­ner of the Gold­en Apple Award twice at the Bratisla­va Inter­na­tion­al Bien­ni­al of Illus­tra­tion (BIB)(2001, 2009).
• Award-win­ning visu­al mas­ter­pieces: “storm” (Bur­ja(Win­ner of the 2001 Award), the clas­si­cal epic poem “Arthur of Albion” (Arthur of Albion(Award-win­ning work in 2009).
• Visu­al Aes­thet­ics: Tatarnikov ded­i­cat­ed his life to the extreme­ly intri­cate tech­niques of hand-paint­ed mono­chrome water­col­ors and hard­core pen-etched lines. He brought to life the cold brick­work of medieval cas­tles and the steely spir­it of myth­i­cal knights, com­plete­ly depart­ing from the syco­phan­tic and child­ish col­or­ing, and using an extreme­ly serene and pure artis­tic vision to sup­port the intel­lec­tu­al height of chil­dren’s his­tor­i­cal books.

| Birth | Pavel Tatarnikau | Pavel Tatarnikau (BIBIANA) |

---

🍃 [other]

event	fig­ure	Details/Awards	Wikipedia/Data Links
born	Alf Prøy­sen	Nor­we­gian’s immor­tal nation­al trea­sure of chil­dren’s lit­er­a­ture and folk singer (1914–1970). His rep­re­sen­ta­tive work is the **“Mrs. Pep­per­pot” series**.Mrs. Pep­per­pot Sto­ries / Nor­we­gian Teskeds­gum­manIt was includ­ed in “1001 Chil­dren’s Books”. The pro­tag­o­nist, Mrs. Pep­per­pot, will sud­den­ly shrink to the size of a pep­per­pot with­out warn­ing. She resolves the cri­sis with her superb grass­roots wis­dom and ratio­nal com­mu­ni­ca­tion with the ani­mals, and defends the inde­pen­dent pride of the every­day labor­er with great dig­ni­ty.	Alf Prøy­sen
born	Mar­gret Ret­tich	A promi­nent 20th-cen­tu­ry Ger­man female graph­ic artist and chil­dren’s social real­ist nov­el­ist (1926–2013). Her mas­ter­piece, *The Jour­ney of the Lit­tle Boat*, vivid­ly depicts the estab­lish­ment of inde­pen­dence, respon­si­bil­i­ty, and coop­er­a­tive order among a group of chil­dren through nature explo­ration and dai­ly labor.Die Reise mit der Jolle(A stun­ning vic­to­ry) The high­est prize of the 1981 Ger­man Youth Lit­er­a­ture Prize (DJLP).	Mar­gret Ret­tich
Death	Ella Young	A renowned Irish schol­ar and pro­fes­sor of folk­lore (1867–1956), she was an immor­tal mas­ter of col­lect­ing and com­pil­ing clas­si­cal mytho­log­i­cal poet­ry. Through­out her life, she metic­u­lous­ly researched anthro­po­log­i­cal doc­u­ments, trans­form­ing ancient Celtic myths into texts that res­onat­ed with the intel­lec­tu­al devel­op­ment of mod­ern chil­dren. Her mas­ter­pieces, *Fan­tas­tic Smith and His Son* and *The Glow­ing Beast* (also trans­lat­ed as *The Glow­ing Beast*), both won numer­ous awards. New­bery Hon­or.	Ella Young
Death	Joseph Kessel	Jean-Bap­tiste R. Paul Owen (1898–1979), an immor­tal French nov­el­ist, war cor­re­spon­dent, and mem­ber of the French Acad­e­my. His epic mas­ter­piece, *The Lion King*, a work imbued with pro­found human­i­tar­i­an com­pas­sion and real­ism, chron­i­cles the African savan­na and tells the sto­ry of a young girl and a wild lion, a tale that tran­scends species dig­ni­ty and bondage.Le LionIt was includ­ed in “1001 Chil­dren’s Books”.	Joseph Kessel
Death	Pauline Clarke	The immor­tal British female fan­ta­sy nov­el­ist (1921–2013). Her time­less mas­ter­piece, *Twelve Sol­diers and the Guardians*, tells the sto­ry of sev­er­al chil­dren who dis­cov­er twelve wood­en sol­diers left behind by the Bron­të sis­ters in the attic of an old house, and estab­lish a sacred pact and intel­lec­tu­al pro­tec­tion with them.The Twelve and the Genii), won the cham­pi­onship in one fell swoop 1962 Carnegie Medal.	Pauline Clarke
Death	Rose­mary Sut­cliff	A giant of British his­tor­i­cal real­ism (1920–1992). His mas­ter­piece is *The Lamp­lighter*.The Lantern Bear­ers) win the lau­rel wreath 1959 Carnegie Medaland won High­ly Com­mend­ed Award for Authors of the Hans Chris­t­ian Ander­sen Award (HCAA)His “Roman-British Tril­o­gy” (such as “Nine Eagles”) vivid­ly por­trays the inde­pen­dence and respon­si­bil­i­ty of young peo­ple dur­ing the Dark Ages, estab­lish­ing a mod­el for chil­dren’s his­tor­i­cal nov­els.	Rose­mary Sut­cliff