Featured Author

Crockett Johnson was born October 20, 1906 in New York City and grew up on Long Island. His real name was David Johnson Leisk but used Crockett (a childhood nickname) Johnson as his pen name.
Rather like Gaul, the career of Crockett Johnson was divided into three parts; as cartoonist, children’s author/illustrator, and as artist with significant accomplishments in each. He attended Cooper Union for his education, studying art, and then undertook a series of jobs eventually ending up as art editor for a series of magazines.
The first chapter of his career became established in the early 1930’s. From 1934 to 1940 he wrote political cartoons for a magazine, New Masses (yes, it was a left leaning magazine). From 1940 to 1943 he moved on from editorial cartoons to a daily comic strip, The Little Man with the Eyes. In April 1942 appeared one of his two master creations. Barnaby was a daily comic strip produced for the magazine PM and ran under Johnson’s authorship through 1946. The strip continued under the authorship of others until 1952 but under Johnson’s storyline supervision with Johnson returning to author the final strip in early 1952.
For those of us primarily familiar with Johnson as a children’s author, it is a little difficult to appreciate just how significant this first part of his career as a cartoonist was. These editorial and strip cartoons were not minor dabblings. His comic strips were syndicated in several dozen papers with an aggregate circulation of 5.6 million readers. Over the course of the next twenty years there were numerous spin-offs from the Barnaby comic strip including book collections of the strips, two different plays, a film, and some TV shows.
Looking at these strips though, it is easy to see them as progenitors of the Harold series. Both the little man with the eyes as well as Barnaby bare a close resemblance to Harold as do all three to Johnson himself (bald and claiming that he drew people without hair because “it’s so much easier! Besides, to me, people with hair look funny”).
In 1940 Johnson married the children’s authoress, Ruth Krauss. Having grown up on the Long Island Sound, Johnson was a keen sailor and they lived most of their life in Connecticut on the north shore of the Sound.
Johnson’s first foray into children’s literature was as the illustrator of his wife’s classic, The Carrot Seed. His first book as author illustrator was Who’s Upside Down? in 1952. In all he produced twenty-one children’s book for which he was the author and illustrator, one book that he co-wrote with Ruth Krauss and seven other children’s books which he illustrated (including one, very interestingly, by Margaret Wise Brown).
Johnson is, however, primarily known for the Harold series of which there were seven published in his lifetime and an eighth that was published posthumously in 2005 based on an original draft version he had prepared. Please see the TTMD review of Harold and the Purple Crayon for a detailed review of the first in the series. It is perhaps best summarized by observing that while the drawings are very simple and stylized, they are enormously effective, particularly when wedded to the text which playfully interweaves the words of the story with what is happening in the pictures. They are very gentle but highly creative stories and are commonly loved by young children (3-6).
In addition to the Harold series, I would also point out Ellen’s Lion which is drawn in a similar simple style but which is pitched at a slightly older child and has, I think, a wonderful balance of a child’s view of things with a dry and gently ascerbic perspective from her toy lion.
Be aware that there are a series of spin-off versions of Harold that are neither written nor drawn by Johnson. These include; Harold and the Purple Crayon: The Birthday Present, Harold and the Purple Crayon: The Giant Garden, Harold and the Purple Crayon: Animals, Animals, Animals, Harold and the Purple Crayon: Harold Finds a Friend, Harold and the Purple Crayon: Dinosaur Days, Harold and the Purple Crayon: Under the Sea. I have an overwhelming preference for the original stories by the original artist but if your child just has to have more Harold than is available in the original seven, then these can serve as literary hamburger helper.
In the mid 1960’s Johnson transitioned to his third career, writing no further children’s books after 1965. For a number of years, Johnson had pursued painting as a hobby. In the last ten years of his life he pursued painting as his primary activity with a number of exhibitions in galleries and museums. His painting was characterized by size and dramatic coloring of geometric shapes.
Johnson passed in 1975 of lung cancer. While I believe his artwork will become merely an interesting footnote, and even Barnaby will fade, I suspect Crockett Johnson has a long run of authorial mortality yet, with both Harold and Ellen as his progeny.
Bibliography

Barnaby (1943)
Barnaby and Mr. O'Malley (1944)

The Carrot Seed (1945) by Ruth Krauss and illustrated by Crockett Johnson

Who's Upside Down? (1952)

Harold and the Purple Crayon (1955) by Crockett Johnson

Is This You? (1955), co-written with Ruth Krauss
Barkis: Some precise and some speculative interpretations of the meaning of a dog's bark at certain times and in certain (illustrated) circumstances (1956)

Harold's Fairy Tale (Further Adventures of with the Purple Crayon) (1956) by Crockett Johnson

The Little Fish That Got Away (1956) by Bernadine Cook and illustrated by Crockett Johnson

Harold's Trip to the Sky (1957) by Crockett Johnson

Terrible, Terrifying Toby (1957)
Time for Spring (1957)

Harold at the North Pole (1957) by Crockett Johnson (1958)

The Blue Ribbon Puppies (1958)

Ellen's Lion: Twelve Stories (1959) by Crockett Johnson

The Frowning Prince (1959)

Harold's Circus (1959) by Crockett Johnson

Will Spring Be Early? or Will Spring Be Late? (1959)

A Picture for Harold's Room (1960) by Crockett Johnson

Harold's ABC (1963) by Crockett Johnson

The Lion's Own Story: Eight New Stories about Ellen's Lion (1963)
We Wonder What Will Walter Be? When He Grows Up (1964)
Castles in the Sand (1965), illus. by Betty Fraser
The Emperor's Gifts (1965)
Gordy and the Pirate and the Circus Ringmaster and the Knight and the Major League Manager and the Western Marshal and the Astronaut; and a Remarkable Achievement. (1965)

The Happy Egg by Ruth Krauss and illustrated by Crockett Johnson

Barnaby #1: Wanted, A Fairy Godfather (1985)
Barnaby #2: Mr. O'Malley and the Haunted House (1985)
Barnaby #3: Jackeen J. O'Malley for Congress (1986)
Barnaby #4: Mr. O'Malley Goes for the Gold (1986)
Barnaby #5: Mr. O'Malley, Wizard of Wall Street (1986)
Barnaby #6: J.J. O'Malley Goes Hollywood (1986)

Magic Beach by Crockett Johnson

“In the great green room” – in how many parental heads are these wonderful lines from Goodnight Moon forever etched from endless bed time recitations? In a brief career of story book writing starting with her first published book in 1937 till her unexpectedly early death in 1952, Margaret Wise Brown produced a torrent of children’s books, having more than 100 in print before her death and leaving in excess of a hundred manuscripts yet unpublished. So overwhelming was her output that she wrote under numerous assumed names and published with six different publishing houses simultaneously.

While her reputation today is firmly anchored in the perennial favorites Goodnight Moon , and Runaway Bunny, she has a number of other books which I believe are easily a match of these including Big Red Barn, Wait Till the Moon is Full, Four Fur Feet, The Little Fir Tree and The Noisy Book.

Unlike some of the other authors we have recently featured, Margaret Wise Brown was born into a comfortably middle class home on May 23rd, 1910 in Brooklyn, New York, one of three children. She was raised on Long Island, other than three years when her parents were stationed in India and she attended boarding school in Switzerland. She graduated from Hollins College in 1932 with a degree in English.

By all accounts (there is a good biography by Leonard S. Marcus entitled Margaret Wise Brown: Awakened by the Moon), Ms. Brown was a purposeful livewire. In 1935 she enrolled in a teacher training program at New York’s Bank Street College of Education which was administered by an innovator in children’s education, Lucy Sprague Mitchell. One of the core principals that Mitchell espoused and which Brown adopted in her story writing, was the Here and Now philosophy. Up until this period children’s writing was characterized by the objective of producing students taught through exposure to fairy tales and myths and legends (James Baldwin, to be featured in an upcoming Pigeon Post, would be a good example). Mitchell argued that children under six were much more responsive to stories that were based in the child’s real world and were appropriate to the child’s level of development. By extension, authors were invited to involve the children in the process of writing stories.

In 1938, Margaret Wise Brown was one of the moving forces behind the establishment of William R. Scott, Inc. a publisher of children’s books grounded in the Here and Now philosophy. She worked there as an editor till 1942, all the while publishing her own books as well. Ms. Brown was an innovator in publishing beyond just the application of the Here and Now philosophy. She felt that illustrator’s were dealt with inequitably and insisted that they receive the same royalty arrangements that she had as writer (rather than a set fee as was the common practice at that time). She worked with some of the most accomplished illustrators of the period including Clement Hurd, Garth Williams and Leonard Wiesgard.

Ms. Brown apparently woke one morning in 1945 with the idea for the story of Goodnight Moon already in her head, wrote it down, called her publisher and read it to her, and had the book accepted on the spot. It was however, another couple of years before it was in print. Clement Hurd had illustrated her earlier hit, Runaway Bunny, and she wanted him to illustrate Goodnight Moon as well. He was at that time still overseas doing military service in the Pacific and it was not till his return in 1946 that he was able to begin work.

In her personal life, Margaret Wise Brown had a wide circle of friends and a dramatic perspective about how to live life. She was generous in her gestures and developed close friendships with many of the social names of the time in addition to those in the writing/publishing worlds. She maintained an East Side apartment as her residence, an additional house for writing and entertaining guests, Cobble Court, in New York as well as her summer house, Only House, in Maine.

Her goal, she once said of her readers, was to “lift him for a few minutes from his own problems of shoelaces that won’t tie, and busy parents and mysterious clock time, into the world of a bug or a bear or a bee or a boy living in the timeless world of a story.”

Margaret Wise Brown died November 13, 1952 in southern France. She had been on a book tour when she underwent a routine appendectomy. She characteristically demonstrated her full recovery to her doctors by doing some can-can dance maneuvers but subsequently suffered an embolism from a dislodged blood clot. She had been engaged to marry James Stillman Rockefeller, Jr. at the time of her death.

With such a prolific author, it is natural that there should be some variation in quality across the titles. This issue is exacerbated by two additional complications. Some of her great books have been re-released with new illustrations; sometimes this is an improvement, sometimes the results are more questionable. Further, having left so many unpublished manuscripts and given her enduring popularity, there have been a number of releases of titles that were not published in her life – again sometimes the result is a delight and sometimes one is left with the impression that the manuscript was more a work in progress rather than a ready for release story. All this is to say that across the dozens of titles available, it is worth starting with the best and working into the others once you know that you like her style. A library well-stocked with her titles is of course the best way to ensure that you are finding the ones that most appeal to you.

Many of her books are now being re-released and many more children being introduced to her works but for generations to come, children will still go off to bed with the gentle cadences of “In the great green room…”

Given how many books she wrote in her lifetime and how many unpublished manuscripts are being dug out of old folders and published posthumously for the first time, it is quite challenging to identify a complete bibliography as we usually do in the Featured Author essays.

Below, instead, is a complete list of Margaret Wise Browns books that are still in print at this point in time, still an extensive list of forty-two books. The first dozen are the ones we think will be most popular among the widest range of young children. A couple of her best books are only sporadically in print, but you might want to keep your eyes open in used bookstores for Four Fur Feet and for The Noisy Book.

Books with a detailed TTMD review and tagging are marked with an asterisk.

Picture Books

Goodnight Moon by Margaret Wise Brown and illustrated by Clement Hurd

The Runaway Bunny by Margaret Wise Brown and illustrated by Clement Hurd

The Little Island* by Margaret Wise Brown and illustrated by Leonard Wiesgard

Wait Till the Moon is Full by Margaret Wise Brown and illustrated by Garth Williams

The Little Fur Family* by Margaret Wise Brown and illustrated by Garth Williams

The Good Little Bad Little Pig* by Margaret Wise Brown and illustrated by Dan Yaccarion

The Important Book by Margaret Wise Brown and illustrated by Leonard Wiesgard

The Golden Egg Book by Margaret Wise Brown and illustrated by Leonard Wiesgard

Sneakers the Seaside Cat by Margaret Wise Brown and illustrated by Anne Mortimer

Big Red Barn* by Margaret Wise Brown and illustrated by Felecia Bond

The Little Fir Tree by Margaret Wise Brown and illustrated by Jim Lamarche

A Child's Goodnight Book by Margaret Wise Brown and illustrated by Jean Charlot

A Child is Born by Margaret Wise Brown and illustrated by Floyd Cooper

A Pussycat's Christmas by Margaret Wise Brown and illustrated by Anne Mortimer

Another Important Book by Margaret Wise Brown and illustrated by Christopher Raschka

Bumble Bugs and Elephants by Margaret Wise Brown and illustrated by Clement Hurd

Bunny's Noisy Book by Margaret Wise Brown and illustrated by Lisa McCue

Christmas in the Barn by Margaret Wise Brown and illustrated by Diane Goode

Give Yourself to the Rain by Margaret Wise Brown and illustrated by Teri L. Weidner

Goodnight Moon 123 by Margaret Wise Brown and illustrated by Clement Hurd

Home for a Bunny by Margaret Wise Brown and illustrated by Garth Williams

I Like Bugs by Margaret Wise Brown and illustrated by G. Brian Karas

I Like Stars by Margaret Wise Brown and illustrated by Joan Paley

Mister Dog by Margaret Wise Brown and illustrated by Garth Williams

Mouse of My Heart by Margaret Wise Brown and illustrated by Loretta Krupinski

My World by Margaret Wise Brown and illustrated by Clement Hurd

My World of Color by Margaret Wise Brown and illustrated by Loretta Krupinski

Nibble Nibble by Margaret Wise Brown and illustrated by Wendell Minor

Robin's Room by Margaret Wise Brown and illustrated by Steve Johnson

Sailor Boy Jig by Margaret Wise Brown and illustrated by Dan Andreasen

Seven Little Postmen by Margaret Wise Brown and illustrated by Edith Thacher Hurd

Sheep Don't Count Sheep by Margaret Wise Brown and illustrated by Benrei Huang

Sleepy ABC by Margaret Wise Brown and illustrated by Esphyr Slobodkina

The Color Kittens by Margaret Wise Brown and illustrated by Alice & Martin Provensen

The Dirty Little Boy by Margaret Wise Brown and illustrated by Steven Salerno

The Fierce Yellow Pumpkin by Margaret Wise Brown and illustrated by Richard Egielski

The Golden Sleepy Book by Margaret Wise Brown and illustrated by Garth Williams

The Little Scarecrow Boy by Margaret Wise Brown and illustrated by David Diaz

The Sailor Dog by Margaret Wise Brown and illustrated by Garth Williams

The Wonderful House by Margaret Wise Brown and illustrated by J.P. Miller

Two Little Gardeners by Margaret Wise Brown and illustrated by Gertrude Elliot

Two Little Trains by Margaret Wise Brown and illustrated by Leo & Diane Dillon

Where Have You Been? by Margaret Wise Brown and illustrated by Leo & Diane Dillon

Over the course of some fifty years, from 1918 till her passing in 1974, Lois Lenski wrote and illustrated more than one hundred books in addition to illustrating another sixty or so by other authors. Not only did she write a great number of books, she wrote in a variety of styles and genres including picture books for children; historical fiction and regional stories for independent readers and young adults; poetry and verse; plays; and hymns. These days, when someone does recognize Lois Lenski as a children’s author, it is not uncommon for them to only know of one part of the body of her work and be unaware of all the rest.

Lois Lenski was born in Springfield, Ohio on October 14, 1893 (the same year as Wanda Gag, one of our earlier Featured Authors) and was the fourth of five children. Her father was a Lutheran minister and her mother was a former school-teacher. When Lois was six years old, her father was called to serve a parish in the small town of Anna, Ohio. Lois Lenski describes Anna and its influence on her in her autobiography (Journey into Childhood): “Commonplace and ordinary, it had not particular beauty or grace, but soon became my own, a compound of sights and sounds and smells and buildings and people that became a part of me…”

Her childhood in Anna, Ohio combined the ambience of rural domesticity with her intense interest in reading and art which, fortunately, was encouraged by the adults surrounding her. Her father subscribed to many of the major publications of the day (Harper’s, Century, Atlantic Monthly) and maintained a family library of children’s books that was quite extensive for that time and place. As luck would have it, a fresco artist who was living with the Lenskis while working in her father’s church encouraged Lois to pursue her interest in art. (Lenski states that basically all her work up until she was fifteen was copying illustrations from magazines and the like.)

Lenski attended Ohio State University, graduating in 1915 with a degree in Education. While majoring in education, she took some art courses and, upon graduating, decided to pursue a career in art instead of teaching. She then moved to New York and continued her arts studies at the Art Student’s League from 1915 to 1920, supporting herself with various part-time jobs. Her first published work appeared in 1918 when she provided the illustrations for two Platt & Munk books: Children’s Frieze Book, and Dolls from Fairy Land. It was also during this period that she took illustration classes from Arthur Covey, an established mural painter whom she would later marry.

In 1920, Lenski moved to England and attended the Westminster School of Art then spent several months in Italy. While in England, she illustrated a further three books for the publisher Bodley Head. She returned to the US in the latter part of 1921 and married her former teacher, Arthur Covey, who was by that time a widower with two children.

Over the 56 year span of her career, Lois Lenski consistently maintained a phenomenal output. There appear to be only five years (1920, 1923, 1933, 1964 and 1969) in which she did not publish at least one book. Her peak year occurred in 1930 when she released 10 books; however, there were many years in which four or five titles were published. This track record is even more impressive when one considers the nature of what she was writing and what else was going on in her life (studying abroad, becoming an instant mother of two at the time of her marriage, her own son’s birth in 1929, and serious bouts of illness in the 1940’s and again in the 1950’s). Were she writing and illustrating only short children’s stories it would be one thing, but when writing both historical fiction and regional stories, she invested significant amounts of time in on-site research. She spent weeks (and sometimes months) in the settings of the stories in order to absorb the local detail and dialect. This commitment to careful research has enabled her stories to continue to ring true.

Her illustrations for other authors would also have demanded a significant portion of her time. She illustrated books by Hugh Lofting (author of the Doctor Dolittle stories), Kenneth Grahame (of Wind in the Willows fame), Maud Hart Lovelace’s popular Betsy-Tacy series, as well as that iconic American story of perseverance, The Little Engine that Could.

To summarize Lois Lenski’s work by reading age, her Small family series which is pitched to very young children includes The Little Family, The Little Auto, The Little Sailboat, The Little Airplane, The Little Train, The Little Fire Engine, The Little Farm, Cowboy Small, Policeman Small, and Papa Small. She also wrote a series of books based on her grandson, Davy’s Day, A Surprise for Davy, Big Little Davy, Davy and His Dog, and Davy Goes Places.

For children in kindergarten to second grade there is the Betsy-Tacy series by Maud Hart Lovelace and illustrated by Lois Lenski; stories about the adventures of two young girls, all of which are still in print and which include Betsy-Tacy, Betsy-Tacy and Tib, Betsy and Tacy Go Over the Big Hill, Betsy and Tacy Go Downtown.

The historical fiction and regional stories are written for older children (independent readers and young adults). The earlier ones in her writing career were seven historical fiction novels, often closely fashioned on actual events, which included Phebe Fairchild, Her Book, Bound Girl of Cobble Hill, Blueberry Corners, and Indian Captive. Phebe Fairchild and Indian Captive both won Newberry Honor Medals.

Her next major body of work, also for older children, was in part motivated by a desire to extract herself from the library research necessary for her historical fiction and to get to real places and real people. Starting with Bayou Suzette, and including Strawberry Girl (the 1946 Newberry Medal Winner), Lenski wrote eighteen regional novels – stories grounded in the distinctive language and land of different parts of the US.

While Lenski was alert to the proprieties of her day and wrote accordingly, being so fact-based in her descriptions, it can be sometimes breathtaking to understand what was involved in the day-to-day life of a sharecropper in Arkansas, a “cracker” in Florida, a resident of public housing, etc. But again, I think this is part of what makes her books for older children so gripping – while they have the readability and flow of well structured fiction, the details and dialect and content make you aware that this is how it was, a gritty reality that is fascinating because it is both so near in time and so far away from much of what we see and experience today.

Today, Lois Lenski is probably best known for her regional story Strawberry Girl which was the 1946 Newberry Medal winner. As mentioned above, she wrote for all ages and, of course, her writing style differed significantly depending on the age to which she was pitching her book. In general, however, I think her writing style can be characterized by a close attention to concrete detail. This trait is, I believe, one of the reasons that, some seventeen of her books are still in print two or three generations after they were first published. Having researched Lenski more thoroughly, I am intrigued by her wide-ranging abilities and will be keeping my eyes open for someone to re-release more of her historical fiction and regional stories.

Picture Books

Cowboy Small by Lois Lenski

I Like Winter by Lois Lenski

Now It's Fall by Lois Lenski

On A Summer Day by Lois Lenski

Papa Small by Lois Lenski

Policeman Small by Lois Lenski

Spring is Here by Lois Lenski

The Easter Rabbit's Parade by Lois Lenski

The Little Airplane by Lois Lenski

The Little Fire Engine by Lois Lenski

The Little Sailboat by Lois Lenski

The Little Train by Lois Lenski

Independent Readers

Bound Girl of Cobble Hill by Lois Lenski

Indian Captive by Lois Lenski

Strawberry Girl by Lois Lenski

Betsy and Tacy Go Downtown by Maud Hart Lovelace and illustrated by Lois Lenski

Betsy and Tacy Go Over the Big Hill by Maud Hart Lovelace and illustrated by Lois Lenski

Betsy-Tacy by Maud Hart Lovelace and illustrated by Lois Lenski

Betsy-Tacy and Tib by Maud Hart Lovelace and illustrated by Lois Lenski

Young Adults

GERALDINE MCCAUGHREAN (1951 - ) - Essay contributed by Ken Vesey, international children's librarian

Still waters run deep. Certainly this is true of English author Geraldine McCaughrean ("mih-KOK-re-in"), an author perhaps best known in the United States for her retellings of stories from mythology, legends of various cultures and traditions, and classic tales from literature. I had the privilege of meeting her and hearing her speak during a school visit in 2006. Younger than her years, she is quiet, polite, perhaps even timid. On stage, however, with a microphone in one hand and her latest book in the other, her voice came across strong and assured as she led an auditorium full of eager school children deep into the suspense of her latest publishing success. Her gift with narrative seems effortless as she leads her readers on original adventures or adaptations of classic works from literature. She is a born storyteller.

McCaughrean is responsible for more than 130 books, a phenomenal output when you consider that she only really began publishing for children just twenty-five years ago. That’s an average of five books a year, most of which are adaptations admittedly, but to call them mere adaptations sells her creativity short. She is no hack, churning out abridged classics by snipping and cutting a thousand page book down to thirty-five. Far from it. Her adaptations start with the essentials of a classic text and rework them almost from the foundation up, making them understandable and digestible to youngsters who otherwise would not be able to process the rarified language or outdated syntax of the original translations. In this role as the reteller of tales from our cultural heritage, McCaughrean very much follows the tradition of the likes of James Baldwin, Roger Lancelyn Green, and Charles and Mary Lamb.

Many of her reworkings for children such as The Canterbury Tales, The Orchard Book of Greek Myths, and Stories from Shakespeare have become much-used and much-beloved student and classroom resources, providing young people accessibility to venerable tales and texts. Far from being Disney-fied versions, her retellings remain true to the original works, rendering them in a style that is contemporary but at the same time respecting the integrity of the original. McCaughrean preserves the simplified essence of the original and breathes new life into the tales, creating a resonance and relevance to today's young readers. Compare the first line of Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales, written in Middle English in rhyming verse above, to McCaughrean’s lines which start her retold version of this monument of English literature below:

Whan that Aprill, with his shoures soote
The droghte of March hath perced to the roote
And bathed every veyne in swich licour

April rain was dripping off the branches as I rode beneath them. But the last sunlight of a fine spring day made the leaves shine…

Her goal is not to translate tales that children could easily read in the original version on their own, but to rewrite stories like Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales that would otherwise, due to vocabulary and style, remain impenetrable until a much later age. Such is her talent as a storyteller.” Publisher’s Weekly once remarked, “that [she] could probably weave a mesmerizing tale from the copy on the back of a cereal box."

Further examples of classic tales adapted by Geraldine McCaughrean include Moby Dick, Cyrano, The Odyssey, King Arthur and the Round Table, and El Cid.

Of her childhood the author stated, "We did not have a television at home until I was nine [and not having one] made a bigger impact on me than it did on the rest of the family, I think-- on the way I imagine and the way I write… The only place where I could make things happen was in my imagination, writing stories.” Although from an early age McCaughrean was always writing, she did not set out to be a writer and was unsure of her professional ambitions. She took a degree at Christ Church College of Education in Canterbury, Kent. Because of her quiet demeanor, she admitted herself that a career as a teacher was an unlikely path to follow.

After working for some years at secretarial posts at various British publishing houses, McCaughrean began proofing magazine copy on fishing, music, cooking, and children’s stories. Eventually she became a staff writer, writing stories to fill pages when the “regular” authors’ copy didn’t stretch to fill the requisite space. Her first commission as a children’s author came about quite by accident. McCaughrean recounts it this way: “I went to church, in those days, with a children's publisher. One day he mentioned that he was planning a version of the Arabian Nights. 'Let me write it!' I pleaded.” Her pleading worked, the church friend gave her the commission, and her first published children’s book was a retelling of One Thousand and One Arabian Nights. When it appeared in 1982 the book was extremely well received and immediately praised for its inspired storytelling and the author’s ability to make the familiar stories of Sinbad, Aladdin, and Ali Baba fresh and original. “That was the start,” McCaughrean said, “but still it did not occur to me to earn my living by writing. From this chance entry into writing for children, McCaughrean never turned back and replicated her initial success with Arabian Nights again and again, establishing her current reputation as a formidable talent in children’s literature.

Although McCaughrean began as a reteller of tales, and this still represents the bulk of her literary output, her forays into original fiction for independent and young adult readers have gained her critical acclaim and a dedicated readership. To date she’s written about a dozen books in this category, though her reputation in this genre might be more firmly established in her native Britain. Five years after her debut with One Thousand and One Arabian Nights, A Little Lower than the Angels, an historical tale set in medieval England, represented her first attempt at original fiction for children. Her talents as a writer were not restricted to retellings as A Little Lower than the Angels was quickly recognized with one of the UK’s top honors in writing for children, the Whitbread (now called Costa) Award for Children’s Literature. In fact, she has won the prestigious Whitbread Children’s Award twice more: in 1994 for Gold Dust and 2004 for Not the End of the World. No other children’s author has won the Whitbread as many times as McCaughrean, proving that what she does, she does exceedingly well.

McCaughrean was further distinguished with the Carnegie Medal (the UK's "Newbery") in 1989 for A Pack of Lies. Her popularity has translated internationally and she has even received awards outside of the English-speaking world, including the Katholischer Kinderbuchpreis (Catholic Children’s Book Prize) in Germany for the local translation of A Little Lower than the Angels and the Deutscher Jugendliteraturpreis (German Youth Literature Prize) in 2004 for Der Drachenflieger, the German translation of The Kite Rider. White Darkness, a recent original work of fiction for young adults, was shortlisted for the Whitbread Children’s Book Award 2005.
In the United States McCaughrean’s books have been distinguished with numerous accolades by the American Library Association, though the big awards have, as yet, eluded her in this country.

By her own description McCaughrean is timid and retiring, but when she sets pen to paper her voice is strong and compelling. In particular, her novels written for older independent readers are characterized by a wonderful creative use of language and an advanced vocabulary. There is no "dumbing down" in her books, and consequently her novels for youth can be enjoyed by independent readers of all ages and can also serve as suitable read-alouds with younger children.

Geraldine McCaughrean was awarded a unique accolade when she was commissioned by the Great Ormond Street Children's Hospital in London (the copyright holders of J.M. Barrie's classic children's tale Peter Pan) to pen an authorized sequel to the tale of the boy who never grows up. Given the iconic nature of this story, the search for a talented writer capable of such a delicate mission was long and thorough. Entitled Peter Pan in Scarlet, this new book combines McCaughrean's skill both as a reteller of tales and her reputation as an original writer of fiction. The sequel is set in 1926, the Lost Boys are known as the Old Boys, and Wendy Darling has become a wife and mother. And what of the boy who never grows up? With McCaughrean’s strong voice and gift for imaginative storytelling, Peter Pan in Scarlet will undoubtedly gain a large readership and become a classic in its own right.

McCaughrean's writing talents have gained her success in the adult fiction market as well, but it is her acclaim in penning original fiction for independent readers and her penchant for artfully retelling such cultural icons as the stories of classical mythology and Shakespearean plays, and making them accessible to a younger audience, that have formed the foundation for her reputation. The British newspaper The Guardian said of McCaughrean, "[she] writes every sort of book and she seems to produce them in the way a rose bush produces flowers."

Picture Books

1001 Arabian Nights by Geraldine McCaughrean

A Pilgrim's Progress by Geraldine McCaughrean

Blue Moon Mountain by Geraldine McCaughrean

Casting the Gods Adrift by Geraldine McCaughrean

Cyrano by Geraldine McCaughrean

Father and Son by Geraldine McCaughrean

Gilgamesh the Hero by Geraldine McCaughrean

Grandma Chickenlegs by Geraldine McCaughrean

Greek Gods and Goddesses by Geraldine McCaughrean

Greek Myths by Geraldine McCaughrean

Hercules by Geraldine McCaughrean

King Arthur and the Round Table by Geraldine McCaughrean

Knights, Kings, and Conquerors by Geraldine McCaughrean

My Grandmother's Clock by Geraldine McCaughrean

Not the End of the World by Geraldine McCaughrean

Odysseus by Geraldine McCaughrean

Perseus by Geraldine McCaughrean

Peter Pan in Scarlet by Geraldine McCaughrean

Smile! by Geraldine McCaughrean

Stop the Train! by Geraldine McCaughrean

The Canterbury Tales by Geraldine McCaughrean

The Canterbury Tales by Geraldine McCaughrean and illusttrated by

The Jesse Tree by Geraldine McCaughrean

The Kite Rider by Geraldine McCaughrean

The Odyssey by Geraldine McCaughrean

The Stones are Hatching by Geraldine McCaughrean

The White Darkness by Geraldine McCaughrean

Theseus by Geraldine McCaughrean

EDWARD ARDIZZONE (1900 - 1979) - Essay contributed by Ken Vesey, international children's librarian

Even if you’re not familiar with his books for children, you’ve probably seen Edward Ardizzone’s work before, though you may not have realized it. Those well-thumbed vintage classroom copies of Charles Dickens’s Bleak House or John Bunyan’s Pilgrim’s Progress you studied in English literature may well have featured his stylized pen and ink drawings as chapter heading vignettes (Click here to see an example) or as full color illustrations that elaborated the text (Example).

Considered one of Britain’s foremost illustrators of his generation, Edward Ardizzone defies classification, since he excelled and gained success as both artist and writer. Not only did his talents establish his reputation in children’s literature, but also as an accomplished war artist and a commercial illustrator. During his life Ardizzone authored more than twenty books and was the illustrator of more than 200 more. He is perhaps best known for his “Tim” series, but also for his contributions as illustrator to countless other children’s books, including Christianna Brand’s Nurse Matilda series.

Ardizzone’s illustrations have the look of what most people today might recognize as the pen and ink style of editorial cartoons or a cartoon from The New Yorker. His drawings are characterized by well-placed lines drawn in black ink and crosshatched to show depth and shadow. In other illustrations Ardizzone may add color by dabbing a watercolor wash on key areas in the illustration to give a more muted sense of shadow and life to his sketches. It is this quick approach, recording the essentials in a free and fluid style, that no doubt assured his success as a war artist during World War II, where economy of line and an ability to catch the essence of a scene quickly were prerequisites for the job.

Ardizzone was born in French Indochina (today’s Vietnam). His father, born of Italian parents (hence the surname) and raised in French colonial Algeria, was a telegraph engineer. The telegraph at that time was the equivalent of today’s internet, an exciting new technology that represented a telecommunications revolution. While Ardizzone’s father remained for a large part of Edward’s childhood in Asia, Ardizzone’s British mother thought it best, when Edward was five, to relocate the children to England, where they attended boarding school and were farmed out to various families and relatives during the long absences of one or both parents. This separation affected Edward deeply and perhaps was a contributing factor to his difficulty with academics. Not a strong student, he took to expressing his aptitude artistically.

In 1918 the extended family was reunited when they moved into 130 Elgin Avenue in the Maida Vale district in London, which was then a fairly new neighborhood developing along Edgware Road past Regent’s Canal and Little Venice in the northwest quadrant of the city. Ardizzone remained there until a few years shortly before his death, and the streets surrounding The Prince Alfred Pub and The Warrington Hotel, where he socialized and frequently drew, are today little changed from when he knew them.

As a young man at the beginning of his professional career, however, his artistic inclination was not nurtured, and at his father’s urging he began his adult life as a clerk in various trading and insurance companies, which he found dreary. To distract himself he attended drawing classes on the side and essentially received no formal art education as a fulltime art student, but rather more as an avocation.

1926 represented a turning point for Ardizzone when he received a sum of money from his father, resigned from his loathsome job, and set out on a journey around the world accompanied by his sister. Shortly thereafter he married and secured a job in commercial illustration.

In 1935 Ardizzone, now a father of two and established as an advertising artist (whose clients included Johnny Walker, Guinness and various British periodicals including Punch and Radio Times), published his first book, Little Tim and the Brave Sea Captain, an adventure about a stowaway that he had had developed from a tale he had told to his children.

His ascent in the realm of children’s literature was interrupted with the outbreak of World War II. All of Britain was consumed by the war effort and Ardizzone’s artistic skills soon led him to a job as an official war artist posted in the bomb-ravaged cities of Britain and across the English Channel on the war-torn continent. He recorded major events from the Fall of France, the London Blitz, the Anzio Landing, Operation Overlord, and the invasion of Germany, among other campaigns. Ardizzone used his preferred style in watercolor and ink to create hundreds of pictures documenting the war, many of which can now be seen at the Imperial War Museum in South London. “He adored being a war artist,” his daughter recalled. “And for the first time ever, he was financially secure”. For his contributions as war artist, Ardizzone was made a CBE (Commander of the British Empire) in 1971 (a British order of knighthood which rewards both civilian and military wartime service). Check the Imperial War Museum’s online gallery to see examples of his wartime work (access info at end of this profile).

After the end of World War II, Ardizzone refocused on his modest success in children’s writing and illustration. It wasn’t until 1949, however, that he released the next installment in the “Tim” series, Tim to the Rescue. He received notice in 1955-6 when Eleanor Farjeon’s The Little Bookroom, for which he provided the illustrations, won the Carnegie Medal and the Hans Christian Andersen Medal for writing. In 1956 Ardizzone received full acknowledge for his skills as illustrator when Tim All Alone earned him the inaugural Kate Greenaway Medal for its outstanding illustrations. (The Greenaway Medal is given by the UK’s Library Association for distinguished illustration in a book for children and is on par with the US’s Caldecott Medal).

The “Tim” series was to become Ardizzone’s most famous creation. Tim’s courage, parent-less independence, and unending adventures on the high seas have assured him a loyal following of generations of young readers. Some have attributed Ardizzone’s success in the “Tim” stories and others like them to his knack for making the improbable probable. Tim achieves impossible feats-- surviving storms and ship wrecks and other calamities-- and the reader does not question it. Perhaps it is because, although Tim is heroic in his exploits, he is also human-- suffering sea sickness, being disciplined by the ship’s crew, and mucking in with the ship’s chores such as swabbing the decks and peeling potatoes in the galley. The illustrations, sometimes with dialog contained within cartoon dialog balloons, add information to the narrative and carry the plot forward. The inspiration for the coastal scenery in the “Tim” series is based on Ardizzone’s childhood memories of the docks at Ipswich and the coastline, a landscape that held a special nostalgia for Ardizzone.

Nanny McPhee, a film released in 2005, was based on the Matilda books by Christianna Brand and illustrated by Ardizzone. It was Ardizzone’s illustrations, however, that has brought the character of Nurse Matilda to life for children for decades, and no doubt inspired the make-up artist and costume designer who turned English rose Emma Thompson into the slightly hideous nanny of the film’s title.

The collaboration with Christianna Brand is an interesting one to note. She and Ardizzone were cousins, and had often spent time together as children along with Edward’s brothers and sisters with an eccentric grandmother in Suffolk, England, while their parents were posted far afield in Asia. The grandmother attempted to reign in her often mischievous grandchildren by telling them stories, one of the repertoire being Nurse Matilda, which Christianna Brand and Edward Ardizzone later turned into the Nurse Matlida series.

Ardizzone once said that his illustrations “must do more than just illustrate the story. They must elaborate it.” He understood the illustrator’s task, whether working with his own story or that of another author, to stimulate the reader’s imagination by embellishing the story with the artist’s pictures. Although some may take issue with this liberal definition of the illustrator’s mandate with regard to illustrations for literary classics, in the realm of children’s literature this philosophy was welcome.

Ardizzone’s quick hand and his sparse cartoonish approach to illustration might well offer an extra attraction to today’s young people, whose renewed fascination with graphic novels (what we used to call comic books) will make Ardizzone a easy sell. His clever and humorous stories, told both through his accomplished illustration and the compelling stories will assure him a dedicated following for many more years to come.

“Ardizzone is a story-teller on the grand scale,” the Times Literary Supplement once explained. “He asks us to believe the most amazing things and we do, cheerfully, because his books offer us, in a thoroughly matter-of-fact way, both excitement and a vision of a world where children are competent to cope with and live through hair-raising experiences, a world where goodness and integrity always triumph.”

RECOMMENDED WEB SITES:

Edward Ardizzone: A Concise Biography and Two Bibliographies with some other material compiled by his son Nicholas Ardizzone PhD (RCA)

Edward Ardizzone / Bloomsbury Author Information

Imperial War Museum London Collections Archive
Search “Ardizzone” in the field Artist Name to see examples of his war drawings.

Picture Books

Litte Tim and the Brave Sea Captain by Edward Ardizzone

Little Tim and Ginger by Edward Ardizzone

Tim All Alone by Edward Ardizzone

Tim and Charlotte by Edward Ardizzone

Tim and Lucy Go To Sea by Edward Ardizzone

Tim in Danger by Edward Ardizzone

Tim to the Lighthouse by Edward Ardizzone

Tim to the Rescue by Edward Ardizzone

Independent Readers

Illustrated by Edward Ardizzone

Nurse Matilda by Christianna Brand and illustrated by Edward Ardizzone

Nanny McPhee by Christianna Brand and illustrated by Edward Ardizzone

The Witch Family by Eleanor Estes and illustrated by Edward Ardizzone

Miranda the Great by Eleanor Estes and illustrated by Edward Ardizzone

Pinky Pye by Eleanor Estes and illustrated by Edward Ardizzone

The Alley by Eleanor Estes and illustrated by Edward Ardizzone

The Little Bookroom by Eleanor Farjeon and Illustrated by Edward Ardizzone

GERALDINE MCCAUGHREAN (1951 - ) - Essay contributed by Ken Vesey, international children's librarian

Still waters run deep. Certainly this is true of English author Geraldine McCaughrean ("mih-KOK-re-in"), an author perhaps best known in the United States for her retellings of stories from mythology, legends of various cultures and traditions, and classic tales from literature. I had the privilege of meeting her and hearing her speak during a school visit in 2006. Younger than her years, she is quiet, polite, perhaps even timid. On stage, however, with a microphone in one hand and her latest book in the other, her voice came across strong and assured as she led an auditorium full of eager school children deep into the suspense of her latest publishing success. Her gift with narrative seems effortless as she leads her readers on original adventures or adaptations of classic works from literature. She is a born storyteller.

McCaughrean is responsible for more than 130 books, a phenomenal output when you consider that she only really began publishing for children just twenty-five years ago. That’s an average of five books a year, most of which are adaptations admittedly, but to call them mere adaptations sells her creativity short. She is no hack, churning out abridged classics by snipping and cutting a thousand page book down to thirty-five. Far from it. Her adaptations start with the essentials of a classic text and rework them almost from the foundation up, making them understandable and digestible to youngsters who otherwise would not be able to process the rarified language or outdated syntax of the original translations. In this role as the reteller of tales from our cultural heritage, McCaughrean very much follows the tradition of the likes of James Baldwin, Roger Lancelyn Green, and Charles and Mary Lamb.

Many of her reworkings for children such as The Canterbury Tales, The Orchard Book of Greek Myths, and Stories from Shakespeare have become much-used and much-beloved student and classroom resources, providing young people accessibility to venerable tales and texts. Far from being Disney-fied versions, her retellings remain true to the original works, rendering them in a style that is contemporary but at the same time respecting the integrity of the original. McCaughrean preserves the simplified essence of the original and breathes new life into the tales, creating a resonance and relevance to today's young readers. Compare the first line of Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales, written in Middle English in rhyming verse above, to McCaughrean’s lines which start her retold version of this monument of English literature below:

Whan that Aprill, with his shoures soote
The droghte of March hath perced to the roote
And bathed every veyne in swich licour

April rain was dripping off the branches as I rode beneath them. But the last sunlight of a fine spring day made the leaves shine…

Her goal is not to translate tales that children could easily read in the original version on their own, but to rewrite stories like Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales that would otherwise, due to vocabulary and style, remain impenetrable until a much later age. Such is her talent as a storyteller.” Publisher’s Weekly once remarked, “that [she] could probably weave a mesmerizing tale from the copy on the back of a cereal box."

Further examples of classic tales adapted by Geraldine McCaughrean include Moby Dick, Cyrano, The Odyssey, King Arthur and the Round Table, and El Cid.

Of her childhood the author stated, "We did not have a television at home until I was nine [and not having one] made a bigger impact on me than it did on the rest of the family, I think-- on the way I imagine and the way I write… The only place where I could make things happen was in my imagination, writing stories.” Although from an early age McCaughrean was always writing, she did not set out to be a writer and was unsure of her professional ambitions. She took a degree at Christ Church College of Education in Canterbury, Kent. Because of her quiet demeanor, she admitted herself that a career as a teacher was an unlikely path to follow.

After working for some years at secretarial posts at various British publishing houses, McCaughrean began proofing magazine copy on fishing, music, cooking, and children’s stories. Eventually she became a staff writer, writing stories to fill pages when the “regular” authors’ copy didn’t stretch to fill the requisite space. Her first commission as a children’s author came about quite by accident. McCaughrean recounts it this way: “I went to church, in those days, with a children's publisher. One day he mentioned that he was planning a version of the Arabian Nights. 'Let me write it!' I pleaded.” Her pleading worked, the church friend gave her the commission, and her first published children’s book was a retelling of One Thousand and One Arabian Nights. When it appeared in 1982 the book was extremely well received and immediately praised for its inspired storytelling and the author’s ability to make the familiar stories of Sinbad, Aladdin, and Ali Baba fresh and original. “That was the start,” McCaughrean said, “but still it did not occur to me to earn my living by writing. From this chance entry into writing for children, McCaughrean never turned back and replicated her initial success with Arabian Nights again and again, establishing her current reputation as a formidable talent in children’s literature.

Although McCaughrean began as a reteller of tales, and this still represents the bulk of her literary output, her forays into original fiction for independent and young adult readers have gained her critical acclaim and a dedicated readership. To date she’s written about a dozen books in this category, though her reputation in this genre might be more firmly established in her native Britain. Five years after her debut with One Thousand and One Arabian Nights, A Little Lower than the Angels, an historical tale set in medieval England, represented her first attempt at original fiction for children. Her talents as a writer were not restricted to retellings as A Little Lower than the Angels was quickly recognized with one of the UK’s top honors in writing for children, the Whitbread (now called Costa) Award for Children’s Literature. In fact, she has won the prestigious Whitbread Children’s Award twice more: in 1994 for Gold Dust and 2004 for Not the End of the World. No other children’s author has won the Whitbread as many times as McCaughrean, proving that what she does, she does exceedingly well.

McCaughrean was further distinguished with the Carnegie Medal (the UK's "Newbery") in 1989 for A Pack of Lies. Her popularity has translated internationally and she has even received awards outside of the English-speaking world, including the Katholischer Kinderbuchpreis (Catholic Children’s Book Prize) in Germany for the local translation of A Little Lower than the Angels and the Deutscher Jugendliteraturpreis (German Youth Literature Prize) in 2004 for Der Drachenflieger, the German translation of The Kite Rider. White Darkness, a recent original work of fiction for young adults, was shortlisted for the Whitbread Children’s Book Award 2005.
In the United States McCaughrean’s books have been distinguished with numerous accolades by the American Library Association, though the big awards have, as yet, eluded her in this country.

By her own description McCaughrean is timid and retiring, but when she sets pen to paper her voice is strong and compelling. In particular, her novels written for older independent readers are characterized by a wonderful creative use of language and an advanced vocabulary. There is no "dumbing down" in her books, and consequently her novels for youth can be enjoyed by independent readers of all ages and can also serve as suitable read-alouds with younger children.

Geraldine McCaughrean was awarded a unique accolade when she was commissioned by the Great Ormond Street Children's Hospital in London (the copyright holders of J.M. Barrie's classic children's tale Peter Pan) to pen an authorized sequel to the tale of the boy who never grows up. Given the iconic nature of this story, the search for a talented writer capable of such a delicate mission was long and thorough. Entitled Peter Pan in Scarlet, this new book combines McCaughrean's skill both as a reteller of tales and her reputation as an original writer of fiction. The sequel is set in 1926, the Lost Boys are known as the Old Boys, and Wendy Darling has become a wife and mother. And what of the boy who never grows up? With McCaughrean’s strong voice and gift for imaginative storytelling, Peter Pan in Scarlet will undoubtedly gain a large readership and become a classic in its own right.

McCaughrean's writing talents have gained her success in the adult fiction market as well, but it is her acclaim in penning original fiction for independent readers and her penchant for artfully retelling such cultural icons as the stories of classical mythology and Shakespearean plays, and making them accessible to a younger audience, that have formed the foundation for her reputation. The British newspaper The Guardian said of McCaughrean, "[she] writes every sort of book and she seems to produce them in the way a rose bush produces flowers."

Picture Books

1001 Arabian Nights by Geraldine McCaughrean

A Pilgrim's Progress by Geraldine McCaughrean

Blue Moon Mountain by Geraldine McCaughrean

Casting the Gods Adrift by Geraldine McCaughrean

Cyrano by Geraldine McCaughrean

Father and Son by Geraldine McCaughrean

Gilgamesh the Hero by Geraldine McCaughrean

Grandma Chickenlegs by Geraldine McCaughrean

Greek Gods and Goddesses by Geraldine McCaughrean

Greek Myths by Geraldine McCaughrean

Hercules by Geraldine McCaughrean

King Arthur and the Round Table by Geraldine McCaughrean

Knights, Kings, and Conquerors by Geraldine McCaughrean

My Grandmother's Clock by Geraldine McCaughrean

Not the End of the World by Geraldine McCaughrean

Odysseus by Geraldine McCaughrean

Perseus by Geraldine McCaughrean

Peter Pan in Scarlet by Geraldine McCaughrean

Smile! by Geraldine McCaughrean

Stop the Train! by Geraldine McCaughrean

The Canterbury Tales by Geraldine McCaughrean

The Canterbury Tales by Geraldine McCaughrean and illusttrated by

The Jesse Tree by Geraldine McCaughrean

The Kite Rider by Geraldine McCaughrean

The Odyssey by Geraldine McCaughrean

The Stones are Hatching by Geraldine McCaughrean

The White Darkness by Geraldine McCaughrean

Theseus by Geraldine McCaughrean