Bridge of Ajia

July 30: Today in the History of Children’s Books

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Ajia

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🎂 1913 — Born: Nankichi Niimi

Japan­ese chil­dren’s lit­er­a­ture writer (1913–1943), whose real name was Nii­mi Shohachi. He and Miyaza­wa Ken­ji are known as the two pil­lars of mod­ern Japan­ese fairy tales. He was good at depict­ing the sub­tle emo­tions and kind­ness between humans and nature and ani­mals with a lyri­cal, warm and slight­ly sad human­is­tic touch.

  • Rep­re­sen­ta­tive works and con­tent:
  • The Lit­tle Fox Buys Gloves (手ぶくろを买いに(Illus­trat­ed by Ken Kuroi et al.) — This sto­ry tells of a lit­tle fox whose hands are red with cold dur­ing the win­ter. The moth­er fox trans­forms one of the lit­tle fox’s hands into a human child’s hand and tells it to go to the town’s gen­er­al store to buy gloves. Despite extend­ing the wrong hand, the lit­tle fox still encoun­ters a kind gen­er­al store own­er and suc­cess­ful­ly buys the gloves, mak­ing the moth­er fox exclaim, “So there are kind peo­ple in humans too!” It’s a clas­sic heart­warm­ing sto­ry.
  • Lit­tle Fox A‑Quan (ごんぎつね— This sto­ry tells of a mis­chie­vous lit­tle fox named Quan who unin­ten­tion­al­ly ruins the chest­nuts and fish that vil­lager Bing Shi catch­es. Lat­er, after learn­ing of Bing Shi’s moth­er’s death, Quan feels guilty and secret­ly brings Bing Shi mat­su­take mush­rooms and chest­nuts every day. Ulti­mate­ly, how­ev­er, he is acci­den­tal­ly killed by the unsus­pect­ing Bing Shi while deliv­er­ing chest­nuts. The sto­ry explores pro­found themes of mis­un­der­stand­ing and com­mu­ni­ca­tion and has been a sta­ple of Japan­ese ele­men­tary school lan­guage text­books for many years.
  • Grand­pa’s Kerosene Lamp (おぢいさんのランプ— This sto­ry tells of how, as times changed and kerosene lamps were grad­u­al­ly replaced by elec­tric lights, an old man put away his old kerosene lamp and embraced the changes in civ­i­liza­tion.

| Birth | Nan­kichi Nii­mi | Nan­kichi Nii­mi (Wikipedia) |

🎂 Born 1960: Marcus Pfister

Swiss chil­dren’s pic­ture book author and illus­tra­tor (1960). Orig­i­nal­ly a graph­ic design­er, he pio­neered the inte­gra­tion of spe­cial holo­graph­ic “silver/gold foil” tech­niques with wet water­col­ors, cre­at­ing pic­ture book works with unique visu­al effects.

  • Rep­re­sen­ta­tive works and con­tent:
  • “Rain­bow Fish Series(My debut work, “I Am a Rain­bow Fish”)Rain­bow Fish(1992) — This sto­ry tells of a large sea fish named “Rain­bow Fish” with daz­zling, shim­mer­ing scales. Ini­tial­ly, due to pride, it was unwill­ing to share its scales with the small­er fish, result­ing in lone­li­ness and iso­la­tion. Lat­er, under the guid­ance of an old octo­pus, it learned to share its shim­mer­ing scales with its friends, ulti­mate­ly gain­ing friend­ship and hap­pi­ness. The work explores the social expe­ri­ence of shar­ing and inte­grat­ing into a group.
  • Oth­er rep­re­sen­ta­tive works include “The Crow Fly­ing to the Moon” (Lit­tle Moon RavenGood­night, NilsAb ins Bett, Nils!), Bird of Par­adise (Par­adise Bird).

| Birth | Mar­cus Pfis­ter | Mar­cus Pfis­ter (Wikipedia) |

🎂 1911 – Born: VH Drummond (Violet Drummond)

British chil­dren’s pic­ture book author and illus­tra­tor (1911–2000). Her style is full of dynamism and British humor and ease.

  • Top Award and Rep­re­sen­ta­tive Works:
  • Mrs. Eas­t­on and the Stork (Mrs. East­er and the Storks(1957) — Award­ed The 1957 Kate Green­away Medal (CIL)It tells the sto­ry of a series of wit­ty social inter­ac­tions and city life adven­tures between the ami­able Lady East, her para­sol, and a pair of storks nest­ing atop the cas­tle.

| Birth | VH Drum­mond | Vio­let Drum­mond (Wikipedia) |

🎂 1928 – Born: Lev Tokmakov

Soviet/Russian print­mak­er and chil­dren’s book illus­tra­tor (1928–2010). He col­lab­o­rat­ed for a long time with his wife, the famous Russ­ian chil­dren’s poet Iri­na Tok­mako­va, and was known for his illus­tra­tions of chil­dren’s lit­er­a­ture with clean lines and a fun sense of form.

  • Inter­na­tion­al Awards and Rep­re­sen­ta­tive Works:
  • Based on Otfried Preußler’s famous nov­el “The Dev­il’s Mill“Kra­batThe illus­tra­tions for the Russ­ian trans­la­tion drawn by [author’s name] won an award. Plaque Award, 1985 Bratisla­va Inter­na­tion­al Bien­ni­al of Illus­tra­tions (BIB)The paint­ing uses serene line draw­ing to depict the clash between dark­ness and jus­tice with­in the mag­ic mill.

| Birth | Lev Tok­makov | Lev Tok­makov (Wikipedia) |

🎂 Born 1959: Helmut Hornung

Ger­man astronomer, sci­ence jour­nal­ist, and chil­dren’s sci­ence writer (1959). He served for many years at the Max Planck Soci­ety, ded­i­cat­ed to pop­u­lar­iz­ing mod­ern astron­o­my and cos­mol­o­gy among young peo­ple.

  • Top Award and Rep­re­sen­ta­tive Works:
  • Based on the chil­dren’s pop­u­lar sci­ence book “Hunt­ing in the King­dom of Stars” (Safari ins Reich der Sterne) won 1993 Ger­man Youth Lit­er­a­ture Prize (DJLP) Non­fic­tion Book AwardIt uses vivid and humor­ous lan­guage to guide young read­ers to explore the mys­ter­ies of stars, black holes and the uni­verse.

| Birth | Hel­mut Hor­nung | Hel­mut Hor­nung (Wikipedia) |

🎂 Born 1966: Lars Elling

Nor­we­gian painter and pic­ture book illus­tra­tor (1966). His artis­tic cre­ations encom­pass oil paint­ing and stage design, and his illus­tra­tion style fea­tures a strong expres­sion­ist tex­ture and col­or com­po­si­tion.

  • Top Award and Rep­re­sen­ta­tive Works:
  • With the pic­ture book “Red, Blue and a Lit­tle Bit of Yel­low“Rot, Blau and ein bißchen GelbIllus­tra­tions by Bjørn Sort­land (text) won an award. 1996 Ger­man Youth Lit­er­a­ture Prize (DJLP) Pic­ture Book AwardThe sto­ry unfolds from the per­spec­tive of a girl vis­it­ing an art muse­um, weav­ing the col­or philoso­phies of mas­ters such as Mon­dri­an and Picas­so into a dream­like visu­al explo­ration.

| Birth | Lars Elling | Lars Elling (Wikipedia) |

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