July 28: Today in the History of Children’s Books

🎂 1866 – Born: Beatrix Potter

British chil­dren’s pic­ture book author, illus­tra­tor, and con­ser­va­tion­ist (1866–1943). She was one of the pio­neers in the his­to­ry of mod­ern pic­ture books, cre­at­ing an ani­mal world that has cap­ti­vat­ed the world for over a cen­tu­ry with her extreme­ly del­i­cate water­col­or brush­work and warm, humor­ous depic­tions of the Eng­lish coun­try­side.

• Rep­re­sen­ta­tive works and con­tent:
• The Tale of Peter Rab­bit (The Tale of Peter Rab­bit(1902) — This is a clas­sic adven­ture sto­ry about a mis­chie­vous lit­tle rab­bit named Peter in a blue coat who sneaks into Mr. McGre­gor’s gar­den to steal veg­eta­bles against his moth­er’s advice, and ends up being chased by his own­er and fac­ing many dan­gers.
• The Tale of Jere­my the Fish­er­man (The Tale of Mr. Jere­my Fish­er— This is a humor­ous sto­ry about Mr. Jere­my, a frog wear­ing a yel­low rain­coat, who is boat­ing and fish­ing in a pond and almost gets swal­lowed by a big fish.
• The Tale of Jemi­ma Pud­dle Duck (The Tale of Jemi­ma Pud­dle-Duck— This sto­ry tells of Jemi­ma, a duck who just want­ed to find a qui­et place to incu­bate her eggs, and her thrilling expe­ri­ence of almost being tricked into becom­ing din­ner by a cun­ning fox.

| Birth | Beat­rix Pot­ter | Beat­rix Pot­ter (Wikipedia) |

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🎂 Born 1928: Květa Pacovská

Czech painter, sculp­tor, and graph­ic artist (1928–2023). She was an artis­tic giant in the mod­ern pic­ture book world who per­fect­ly com­bined Bauhaus col­or the­o­ry, geo­met­ric lines, open­work design, and three-dimen­sion­al inter­ac­tion.

• Supreme Inter­na­tion­al Hon­ors: At In 1992, he won the Hans Chris­t­ian Ander­sen Award (HCAA) for Best Artist.He has won the BIB Gold­en Apple Award and the Ger­man Youth Lit­er­a­ture Prize (DJLP).
• Rep­re­sen­ta­tive works and con­tent:
• The Lit­tle Flower King­dom King (The Lit­tle Flower King— This sto­ry tells of a young king who plant­ed thou­sands of tulips in his small gar­den, but lacked a sin­gle spe­cial flower that could lead to a union with the queen. He embarked on a jour­ney to find love and beau­ty. The visu­als are filled with high­ly sat­u­rat­ed bright reds and geo­met­ric shapes.
• The Mag­ic The­ater Has Begun (Mid­night Play— A play­book with an archi­tec­tur­al feel and inter­ac­tive paper sculp­ture, show­cas­ing a fan­tas­ti­cal scene of col­ors, sym­bols, and char­ac­ters leap­ing and rev­el­ing in a the­ater when the mid­night moon ris­es.
• The Alpha­bet Book (Alpha­bet— Acclaimed as one of the most beau­ti­ful alpha­bet books in the world, it trans­forms the 26 let­ters of the Eng­lish alpha­bet into a visu­al­ly sculp­tur­al form that is spa­tial, tan­gi­ble, and fold­able.

| Birth | Kvě­ta Pacov­ská | Kvě­ta Pacov­ská (Wikipedia) |

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🎂 Born 1932: Natalie Babbitt

Amer­i­can chil­dren’s author and illus­tra­tor (1932–2016). Her works are known for their extreme­ly beau­ti­ful and pro­found lit­er­ary prose style, and she was adept at inte­grat­ing philo­soph­i­cal reflec­tions into her fan­ta­sy nov­els for young read­ers.

• Awards and rep­re­sen­ta­tive works:
• “Foun­tain of Youth” (Tuck Ever­last­ing(1975) — Mod­ern Youth Lit­er­a­ture Clas­sicsThe sto­ry tells of 10-year-old Win­nie who acci­den­tal­ly dis­cov­ers the secret of the Tuck­er fam­i­ly’s immor­tal­i­ty, gained by drink­ing spring water from the for­est. Through the Tuck­er fam­i­ly’s pro­found real­iza­tion that “immor­tal­i­ty is not a gift but a shack­le,” the work explores the philo­soph­i­cal ques­tions of life, death, and the pas­sage of time in a pro­found way.
• Nin­auk Moun­tain Adven­ture (Knee-Knock Rise(1970) — Award­ed New­bery Hon­or, 1971The sto­ry tells of a young boy’s quest to uncov­er the truth behind the “mon­ster” atop a moun­tain that inspires both fear and rev­er­ence in the entire vil­lage, explor­ing the essence of human­i­ty’s fear and faith in the unknown.

| Birth | Natal­ie Bab­bitt | Natal­ie Bab­bitt (Wikipedia) |

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🎂 Born 1960: Jon J. Muth

Amer­i­can illus­tra­tor and pic­ture book author (1960). He excels at per­fect­ly blend­ing the charm of East­ern ink paint­ing and Zen phi­los­o­phy with West­ern clas­si­cal water­col­or ren­der­ing, bring­ing a tran­quil and pro­found spir­i­tu­al space to chil­dren’s pic­ture books.

• Top Award and Rep­re­sen­ta­tive Works:
• The Sto­ry of Zen (Zen Shorts(2005) — Award­ed 2006 Calde­cott Hon­orThe sto­ry tells of a giant pan­da named Still­wa­ter who becomes a close friend to three neigh­bor­hood chil­dren and guides them to resolve their dai­ly jeal­ousy, anger, and obses­sions through three East­ern fables.
• Stone Soup (Stone Soup): This sto­ry places a tra­di­tion­al Euro­pean folk­tale in the con­text of a clas­si­cal Chi­nese vil­lage, telling the tale of three monks who use a few stones to cook soup, which encour­ages the indif­fer­ent vil­lagers to share their own ingre­di­ents, ulti­mate­ly allow­ing them to redis­cov­er the joy of shar­ing.
• City Dog, Coun­try Frog (City Dog, Coun­try Frog(Text by Mo Willems): This water­col­or paint­ing depicts the friend­ship and life-and-death farewell between a city dog and a coun­try frog across the four sea­sons, cre­at­ing a scene rich in the rhythm of life and a serene beau­ty.

| Birth | Jon J. Muth | Jon J. Muth (Wikipedia) |

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🎂 Born 1957: Quint Buchholz

Ger­man illus­tra­tor and pic­ture book cre­ator (1957). His works are known for their extreme­ly del­i­cate air­brush and dot tech­nique, and the pic­tures are full of dream­like sur­re­al­ist atmos­phere and poet­ic blank space.

• Inter­na­tion­al Awards and Rep­re­sen­ta­tive Works:
• With “Shana Wants to Per­form in the Cir­cus“Die Sara, die zum Cir­cus will) won Plaque Award, 1991 Bratisla­va Inter­na­tion­al Bien­ni­al of Illus­tra­tions (BIB).
• Moment Col­lec­tor (der samm­ler der augen­blicke): It tells the sto­ry of a reclu­sive painter, Max, who uses his brush to cap­ture the small, qui­et, yet mov­ing moments in life as his paint­ings, pos­sess­ing a pro­found poet­ic and serene artis­tic charm.
• Good­night, Lit­tle Bear (Schlaf gut, klein­er Bär): Through the image of a lit­tle bear gaz­ing out the win­dow before going to sleep, the nature, music, and dreams of the night world are depict­ed in an incred­i­bly warm and gen­tle way.

| Birth | Quint Buch­holz | Quint Buch­holz (Wikipedia) |

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🎂 1930 – Born: Claude Boujon

French chil­dren’s pic­ture book author and illus­tra­tor (1930–1995). He was known for using sim­ple, clean lines and bright, sim­ple col­ors to explore the wis­dom and humor in chil­dren’s dai­ly inter­ac­tions.

• Rep­re­sen­ta­tive works and con­tent:
• The Blue Chair (La Chaise bleue— Award The 1997 French Prix Sor­cièresThe sto­ry tells of a dog and a camel who find a blue chair in the desert, and then use their imag­i­na­tions to turn the chair into a trac­tor, a heli­copter, a cir­cus prop, and oth­er hilar­i­ous toys.
• “Neigh­bor” (La Brouille): This sto­ry tells of two neigh­bor­ing rab­bits who have con­flicts and argu­ments due to their dif­fer­ent liv­ing habits, but ulti­mate­ly unite and resolve their dif­fer­ences when faced with a fox attack.
• “The Toad­’s Read­ing Notes” (Le Cra­paud percheThis sto­ry tells of a toad who loves to read and how he uses the wis­dom he gains from read­ing to over­come dan­ger.

| Birth | Claude Bou­jon | Claude Bou­jon (Wikipedia) |

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⚰️ 2022 — Passed away: Jim Trelease

Amer­i­can read­ing pro­mot­er, edu­ca­tor, and jour­nal­ist (1941–2022). He was a key fig­ure in the glob­al move­ment of par­ent-child read­ing and read­ing aloud.

• Supreme Hon­ors and Indus­try Con­tri­bu­tions:
• The Read-Aloud Hand­book (The Read-Aloud Hand­book(First pub­lished in 1979): The work is hailed as an essen­tial clas­sic in the field of read­ing pro­mo­tion. Tre­lease proves this through numer­ous clin­i­cal cas­es and edu­ca­tion­al data:““Read­ing aloud is the most effec­tive way to enhance chil­dren’s read­ing abil­i­ty and estab­lish read­ing habits.””This book has influ­enced count­less fam­i­lies and schools around the world.
• Award­ed in 2008 Eric Car­le Hon­orary Award, Bridge Hon­oreeIn recog­ni­tion of his out­stand­ing con­tri­bu­tions to build­ing a bridge between chil­dren’s books and read­ers.

| Passed Away | Jim Tre­lease | Jim Tre­lease (Wikipedia) |

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🍃 [other]

event	fig­ure	Details/Awards	Wikipedia/Data Links
born	Glo­ria Fuertes	A renowned Span­ish female poet and chil­dren’s author (1917–1998). Her mas­ter­piece, *The All-Pow­er­ful Kan­ga­roo*, vivid­ly por­trays the humor­ous expe­ri­ences of a com­pas­sion­ate kan­ga­roo who serves as a nan­ny in var­i­ous ani­mal fam­i­lies.Can­gu­ra para todoIt was includ­ed in “1001 Chil­dren’s Books”.	Glo­ria Fuertes
born	Hen­ri­et­ta Gar­land	Amer­i­can illus­tra­tor (1873–1950). Author of Dorothy Edwards’ famous work, *My Naughty Lit­tle Sis­ter*.My Naughty Lit­tle Sis­terShe cre­at­ed vivid and life­like pen illus­tra­tions, which were includ­ed in “1001 Chil­dren’s Books”.	H. Gar­land Dupré
born	Willard Price	Har­ry and John, a Cana­di­an-Amer­i­can adven­tur­er and author (1887–1983). His famous “Har­ry and John’s Wilder­ness Adven­tures” series’ first nov­el, *The Ama­zon Expe­di­tion*, is a prime exam­ple.Ama­zon Adven­ture(1949) records the thrilling sto­ry of the two broth­ers ven­tur­ing deep into the South Amer­i­can jun­gle to col­lect wild ani­mals, and is includ­ed in “1001 Chil­dren’s Books”.	Willard Price
Death	Car­ol Kendall	Amer­i­can chil­dren’s fan­ta­sy nov­el­ist (1917–2012). His work includes *Gim­mitch’s Cup* (…).The Gam­mage Cup(1959) tells a fan­ta­sy sto­ry about inde­pen­dent think­ing, break­ing down rigid vil­lage con­ven­tions, and hero­ism, and won the award. New­bery Hon­or, 1960.	Car­ol Kendall
Death	Ted Lewin	Amer­i­can water­col­orist and pic­ture book author (1935–2021). His work includes *Pepe the Lamp­lighter*.Peppe the Lamp­lighter(1993) tells the sto­ry of Pepe, a young boy in an old neigh­bor­hood of New York City in the ear­ly 20th cen­tu­ry, who takes on the role of lamp­lighter to help sup­port his fam­i­ly. The water­col­or and light effects are deeply mov­ing and won awards. 1994 Calde­cott Hon­or.	Ted Lewin
Death	Mar­garet Miller	Amer­i­can pho­tog­ra­ph­er and author of pic­ture books for young chil­dren (1914–1994). His rep­re­sen­ta­tive work is *Baby Faces*.Baby FacesThese videos, which use real­is­tic and inti­mate cam­era lens­es to record chil­dren’s facial expres­sions and dai­ly cog­ni­tion, are wide­ly pop­u­lar.	Mar­garet Miller
born	Vive Tol­li	Eston­ian print­mak­er (1928–2020). His prints depict the Eston­ian tra­di­tion­al myth, “The Tale of the Man Who Knows the Snake’s Lan­guage” (…).Jutt mehest, kes teadis ussisõnuHe cre­at­ed exquis­ite wood­block print illus­tra­tions and won an award. Gold­en Apple Award at the 1977 Bratisla­va Inter­na­tion­al Bien­ni­al of Illus­tra­tions (BIB).	Vive Tol­li