Featured Author

Robert San Souci is best known for his retellings of folk tales from around the world. Over the years, he has broadened his work to include stories from world mythology, legends from a variety of cultures, and retellings of classic stories such as The Legend of Sleepy Hollow. He has also written several books of ghost stories. In many cases, he re-tells familiar stories (such as the King Arthur myths or American tall tales), but he is also dedicated to introducing young readers to less well-known folktales, stories, and legends from around the world. His stories feature different types of protagonists, including many strong, smart girls. In San Souci’s words: “I love to take these old stories and bring them alive for a new audience of young readers, often working closely with my illustrators in the process.”

Robert San Souci was born in San Francisco, California on October 19, 1946. He was drawn to storytelling and writing from a very young age. He recalls that, as a child, if he heard a story he particularly enjoyed, he would re-formulate it leaving out the parts that were less interesting and enhancing the parts that he found more interesting. He would then go to find a friend or a younger child to whom he could tell the new story. This impulse for storytelling is apparent in many of his books, particularly those drawn from the African American oral tradition like Sukey and the Mermaid or The Talking Eggs. Sukey and the Mermaid reads like a story that has been written down. It includes some of the Gullah dialect from coastal South Carolina and both the opening four lines and the ending four lines give the feeling of a story teller setting up (or ending) her story.

Writing was also an early interest for San Souci, with teachers offering their support and encouragement for his first efforts. In grammar school, he wrote for the school newspaper, moving on to the school yearbook when he reached high school. As a high school sophomore, San Souci was particularly excited to have an essay published in a book called T.V. as Art. He went on to study creative writing, English literature, and world literature at St. Mary’s College of California, receiving a B.A. in 1968. He continued his studies in graduate school at California University at Hayward with the goal of focusing more on folklore, mythology, and stories from world religions, an interest that continues to inspire him. Before having his first book accepted for publication, he worked at various jobs in the book industry including book buyer, copy writer, bookstore department manager, and book editor. During this time, he also wrote articles for newpapers and magazines as well as book and theater reviews with the goal of getting as much of his work in print as possible.

Robert San Souci’s first published children’s book, The Legend of Scarface, was a collaborative effort with his brother Daniel who created the illustrations (and who incidentally shares Robert’s birthday, albeit 10 years later). The story was drawn from the oral tradition of the Blackfeet tribe whose territory is in northern Montana and across the border in Canada. The Legend of Scarface was named Best Illustrated Book of the Year in 1978 by the New York Times. It was also named a Notable Children’s Trade Book. With this superb start, San Souci was on his way.

As the book list below shows, San Souci has worked with many different illustrators during his career. His priority with illustrations is not only bringing the story to life, but allowing the story and the historically accurate illustrations to “open a window on other times, places, ways of living and looking at the world.” As he researches the story he is writing, San Souci also collects copies of photographs and pictures of unusual items that could be included in the illustrations to help place the story in its cultural and historic context. He elaborates “I’ve delightedly supplied artists with pictures of Japanese cricket cages, California Miwok burden baskets, a deadly Caribbean snake, or what-have-you.”

San Souci’s talent for retelling stories, his meticulous research, and his illustrator’s skill in choosing the scenes and details to capture, all work together to make folklore from around the world accessible to young readers (and listeners). He continues to identify stories that need to be told and states “I plan to keep on writing until I run out of ideas or until people lose a love of hearing and reading and sharing stories.” As a reader, I have enjoyed every one of Robert San Souci’s retellings that I have read, and I particularly look forward to reading new stories from him that “open a window” to another world.

Picture Books

Brave Margaret by Robert D. San Souci and illustrated by Sally Wern Comport

Cendrillon by Robert D. Dan Souci and illustrated by Brian Pinkney

Cinderella Skeleton by Robert D. Dan Souci and illustrated by David Catrow

Cut from the Same Cloth by Robert D. Dan Souci and illustrated by Brian Pinkney

Fa Mulan by Robert D. Dan Souci and illustrated by Jean and Mou-Sien Tseng

Feathertop by Robert D. Dan Souci and illustrated by Daniel San Souci

Kate Shelley by Robert D. Dan Souci and illustrated by Max Ginsburg

Little Gold Star by Robert D. Dan Souci and illustrated by Sergio Martinez

Little Pierre by Robert D. Dan Souci and illustrated by David Catrow

N. C. Wyeth's Pilgrims by Robert D. Dan Souci and illustrated by N.C.Wyeth

Sister Tricksters by Robert D. Dan Souci and illustrated by Daniel San Souci

Sootface by Robert D. Dan Souci and illustrated by Daniel San Souci

Sukey and the Mermaid by Robert D. Dan Souci and illustrated by Brian Pinkney

The Boy and the Ghost by Robert D. Dan Souci and illustrated by Brian Pinkney

The Faithful Friend by Robert D. Dan Souci and illustrated by Brian Pinkney

The Reluctant Dragon by Robert D. Dan Souci and illustrated by John Segal

The Secret of the Stones by Robert D. Dan Souci and illustrated by James Ransome

The Talking Eggs by Robert D. Dan Souci and illustrated by Jerry Pinkney

The Twins and the Bird of Darkness by Robert D. Dan Souci and illustrated by Terry Widener

The Well at the End of the World by Robert D. Dan Souci and illustrated by Rebecca Walsh

Two Bear Cubs by Robert D. Dan Souci and illustrated by Daniel San Souci

Zigzag by Robert D. Dan Souci and illustrated by Stefan Czernecki

Independent Reader

Dare to Be Scared by Robert D. Dan Souci and illustrated by David Ouimet

Even More Short and Shivery by Robert D. Dan Souci and illustrated by Jacqueline Rogers

More Short and Shivery by Robert D. Dan Souci and illustrated by Katherine Coville

Short and Shivery by Robert D. Dan Souci and illustrated by Katherine Coville

Triple-dare to be Scared by Robert D. Dan Souci and illustrated by David Ouimet

Although Mary Azarian is both an author and an illustrator, she is primarily known for her detailed, painted woodblock prints (often of classic New England scenes), such as those in Snowflake Bentley by Jacqueline Briggs Martin which was awarded the Caldecott Medal in 1999. She developed an interest in art at an early age, making her first linoleum cut when she was in the fourth grade. It was to be a Christmas card with the word “NOEL” carved below the image. Being new to the process, she was surprised to find that the image was reversed when printed. She ruefully recalls that she “wound up with a Christmas card that proclaimed LEON.” Some lessons are never forgotten.

Perhaps it is not surprising that so many of Azarian’s illustrations for children’s books are of farms and country scenes. She was born in 1940 and grew up in what is now suburban Washington, DC, although at that time it was very rural. She recalls “I had the best of two worlds. On the one hand, I lived surrounded by gardens, fields, and woods. I spent hours on a pony exploring what was then still a rural area. On the other hand, we lived within thirty minutes of Washington and its wealth of museums and other cultural opportunities. I spent many hours in the National Gallery, the museum of Natural History, and other parts of the Smithsonian.” She studied art, specializing in printmaking, at Smith College in Massachusetts and received a BA in art in 1963. She and her husband, Tom Azarian, moved to a small farm in Vermont in 1967 with the goal of living on a subsistence farm with a cow, a flock of chickens, and a garden. When it became obvious that additional income would be needed, Azarian began teaching in the one room schoolhouse in her area, responsible for children in first through eighth grade. The school had very few resources and, to help decorate the classroom and teach the alphabet to the younger students, she created a set of alphabet posters made in her preferred medium: wood block prints.

Several years later, the Vermont Council on the Arts sponsored grants for artists working on projects with themes related to Vermont. Azarian proposed to create another set of alphabet posters, with each letter representing something that is traditional to Vermont. She won the grant and, when the project was completed, the Vermont Council on the Arts was so taken with her work that they arranged for a complete set of the posters to be printed for every elementary school in Vermont. This set of posters later became a book entitled A Farmer’s Alphabet . The prints are all done in black and white and the lettering is in red. Drawing inspiration from her love of gardening, she also produced another alphabet book, A Gardener’s Alphabet, in which the illustrations are woodblock prints that have been colored.

Most of Azarian’s book illustrations are woodblock prints that are later painted with acrylic paints. This approach is unusual for a printmaker as most printmakers ink the woodblock if color is desired in the final print. It also provides a very different “look”. Azarian usually makes several copies of a print, allowing herself to experiment when painting the print so that she can get just the right effect.

Another striking aspect of Mary Azarian’s art is that much of it is so solidly based in New England. Looking at the illustrations in Snowflake Bentley, Miss Bridie Chose a Shovel, Faraway Summer, and From Dawn Till Dusk, the location is very clearly New England. The details of the tidy farms and farm houses, the apple orchards, the gardens, the interiors of the houses all have a classic New England look about them. I grew up in South Carolina, accustomed to the look of farms in the South – old ramshackle barns, graying fences, verdant growth. It is a very, very different scene than that of a Vermont farm with its crisp, tended look. I did not visit New England until I was in my twenties, but the landscape was familiar simply from being exposed to illustrations such as those by Mary Azarian and Tasha Tudor, another New England artist and illustrator.

Although it is based in Norway rather than Vermont or other parts of New England, The Race of the Birkebeiners captures the essence of the “look” of Northern Norway. These illustrations are filled with birch trees, thick forests, mountains, traditional Norwegian architecture and, of course, lots of snow. What a wonderful armchair adventure it is to be able to immerse yourself in a story from another time period in a faraway corner of the world, yet have the sense of knowing what it might have been like because the story has been so carefully and ably illustrated.

Mary Azarian continues to run her print shop in Vermont and continues to illustrate children’s books, preferring to do at most one a year. I hope you will find as much enjoyment from her illustrations as our family has.

Picture Books

A Christmas Like Helen's written by Natalie Kinsey-Warnock and illustrated by Mary Azarian

A Farmer's Alphabet written and illustrated by Mary Azarian

A Gardener's Alphabet written and illustrated by Mary Azarian

Barn Cat written by Carol P. Saul and illustrated by Mary Azarian

From Dawn Till Dusk written by Natalie Kinsey-Warnock and illustrated by Mary Azarian

Here Comes Darrell written by Leda Schubert and illustrated by Mary Azarian

Miss Bridie Chose a Shovel written by Leslie Connor and illustrated by Mary Azarian

Snowflake Bentley written by Jacqueline Briggs Martin and illustrated by Mary Azarian

The Race of the Birkebeiners written by Lise Lunge-Larsen and illustrated by Mary Azarian

Tuttle's Red Barn written by Richard Michelson and illustrated by Mary Azarian

Independent Reader

Faraway Summer written by Johanna Hurwitz and illustrated by Mary Azarian

The Unsigned Valentine written by Johanna Hurwitz and illustrated by Mary Azarian

Robert Lawson (1892 – 1957) in his dual role as illustrator and author is the only person to have the distinction of winning both a Caldecott Medal (for They Were Strong and Good) in 1940 and a Newbery Medal (for Rabbit Hill in 1944). Although he has excelled both at illustrating and writing children’s books, most people are more familiar with his illustrations. His preferred medium was pen and ink and he was known for his realistic, detailed style.

During his childhood in Montclair, New Jersey, Lawson did not show any pronounced inclination to be an artist, but became seriously interested in art during high school after winning a poster contest. He went on to attend the New York School of Fine and Applied Arts. Initially, Lawson aspired to be a commercial artist. To that end, after graduating, he worked in a variety of areas including magazine illustration and designing stage sets for a small theater in Greenwich Village. His service in World War I was spent designing camouflage in France with the Camouflage Section, Fortieth Engineers.

After the war, Lawson’s magazine illustrations and other work eventually led him to children’s book illustration. His first children’s book illustrations, created for George Randolph Chester’s The Wonderful Adventures of Little Prince Toofat, were published in 1922. Later that year, he was asked to provide illustrations for Carl Sandburg’s Rootabaga Stories when they were published serially in Designer magazine.

In 1922, he also married Marie Abrams, an illustrator and author in her own right. In the early days of their marriage, they supported themselves by designing greeting cards. One story goes that they each designed a greeting card every day for three years in order to earn the money to purchase their house in Westport, Connecticut. This house was named Rabbit Hill and is the setting for the book of the same name as well as its sequel, The Tough Winter. During the Great Depression, the Lawsons moved back into New York where work was more plentiful. It was during this time, in 1930, that Robert Lawson took up etching. His well-known talent for detailed draftsmanship was an asset in this endeavor. When asked to create illustrations for The Wee Men of Ballywooden by Arthur Mason, he used the etching technique. The following year (1931), he was awarded the John Taylor Arms Prize of the Society of American Etchers. Despite his success with this technique, Lawson’s preferred medium remained pen and ink. He illustrated very few children’s books with etchings.

The book that Robert Lawson is probably the most famous for is The Story of Ferdinand by Munro Leaf. The Story of Ferdinand was one of my particular favorites as a child. I loved the idea of a bull who did not want to fight in the bull ring, but just wanted to stay in his meadow and smell the flowers. I suppose it was the message of individuality that appealed to me. The illustrations of the matadors trying to persuade Ferdinand to charge always made me smile and I was fascinated with the notion of sitting under a cork tree (who would have imagined that corks came from the bark of trees?) My 5 or 6 year old take on this book not withstanding, it created quite a stir for different reasons. Originally released around the time of the Spanish Civil war,some people saw it as promoting an inappropriate pacifist message in a time when the world seemed destined for another conflict; others saw Communist propaganda in the story and, still others, a “glorification of fascist militarism”. According to the author, Munro Leaf, it was not meant to be any of these things. He wrote the story in forty minutes one Sunday afternoon to give his friend, Robert Lawson, something to draw that “was not a cat, a mouse, a dog or a horse – something different in children’s books.”

Lawson’s first effort as an author and illustrator was the book entitled Ben and Me, a fantasy devised to introduce young readers to Benjamin Franklin and his many accomplishments. The narrator is a mouse named Amos who becomes a dear friend of Mr. Franklin and who, incidentally, gives Ben Franklin some of his best ideas. The success of this book with young readers led Lawson to continue the idea with I Discover Columbus, Mr. Revere and I, and Captain Kidd’s Cat.

As noted above, Lawson achieved striking success both as an author and as an illustrator, winning the prestigious Caldecott Award for his illustrations in They Were Strong and Good and the highly regarded Newbery Award for the text of Rabbit Hill . No other person has excelled in this way with these two complementary, but very different talents. I have mentioned his talent for detail and realism in his illustrations, but perhaps it is also his subtle sense of humor that shines through in both his illustrations and his text that helped him to achieve this distinction and that continues to ensure the popularity of both the books he has written and the ones he has illustrated.

Picture Books

Otter on His Own by Doe Boyle and illustrated by Robert Lawson

Story of Ferdinand by Munro Leaf and illustrated by Robert Lawson

They Were Strong and Good written and illustrated by Robert Lawson

Independent Readers

Adam of the Road by Elizabeth Janet Gray and illustrated by Robert Lawson

Ben and Me written and illustrated by Robert Lawson

Mr. Popper's Penguins by Richard Atwater, illustrated by Robert Lawson

Mr. Revere and I written and illustrated by Robert Lawson

Rabbit Hill written and illustrated by Robert Lawson

The Great Wheel written and illustrated by Robert Lawson

Wa-Tonka by Joe Novara and illustrated by Robert Lawson

Wee Gillis by Munro Leaf and illustrated by Robert Lawson

One of the drawbacks of growing up overseas is that there are some books/authors that may be known here in the US that just never cross your radar screen. Such was the case for me with the author Sterling North and his best known work, Rascal a Memoir of a Better Era. I have only in recent years come to know it through the eyes of my children who have all discovered and enjoyed the story.

North was born November 4, 1906 in Edgerton, Wisconsin. (What is it about the Upper Midwest? They seem to churn out wonderful children’s authors like corn.) His mother died when North was only seven and he was raised by his father and older sister. Raised might be a little overstating the case. As related in Rascal a Memoir of a Better Era, which is substantially autobiographical, his father was a somewhat dreamy, indulgent presence, when present at all, often being away on business. As a consequence, North was to a degree self-reared with an autonomy and independence which echoes that classic of American Boyhood, Tom Sawyer.

Firmly setting the benchmark for that autonomy is the building by North of his eighteen foot canoe - in the living room! It is that sort of detail and event which grabs a child’s attention and perhaps reminds an adult. At one point in my childhood, probably when I was about six years old, we lived briefly in a newly built suburb of Houston. Among the things I remember is that a block or two from our house were some woods with a stream through it. Now it couldn’t have been all that big a stream. But a moving body of water it was and to a six year old boy’s mind that meant that one ought to have a raft to float upon that stream. So, probably to my mother’s consternation, I set about building said raft in our back garden in the shade of an old oak tree.

There were plenty of materials, plywood, 2x4’s etc. left over from our move to the house as well as from on-going construction in the neighborhood. I had a grand time planning, building, adding, having another idea and adding some more. Layer was added to layer, “cabins” on top of crawl spaces. The monstrosity that took form, a nautical Tower of Babel, was my personal delight and had absolutely no chance of being moved at all, to say nothing of being transported to the stream, much less staying in one piece or floating had it by some miracle been launched. I always had the somewhat wistful idea that perhaps a big storm would come along with such flooding that we would all have to seek refuge on my proto-ark but that never happened. I have no idea whatever became of my proto-ark but I sure remember the pleasure of building it.

Likewise with Rascal a Memoir of a Better Era, which is North’s tale of a particular year when he eleven years old when he captured and raised a baby raccoon, Rascal. Still wrestling with the loss of his mother, enjoying/suffering what would today probably be regarded as criminal neglect, it was for North truly a memoir of a better era. Raising Rascal, making decisions about his welfare, confronting moral decisions about his own actions – he grew up far more than the twelve months would suggest.

Part of the beauty of the story is that it deals with weighty matters but from a child’s perspective and without over-weighted moralizing or wailing of unfairness. He had issues to deal with, he learned how to deal with them, life went on. A child reading the story enjoys it for its deft touch of understanding what it would be like to be a child in those circumstances and can relate, be heartened and grieve with the protagonist. The Young Adult and Adult can read the story and understand deeper levels of implication.

But North was more than the author of a single home-run. His early career was as a newspaperman, first in Chicago and then in New York. He took up authorial writing in parallel with his career as a reporter with his first book The Pedro Garino: The Adventures of a Negro Sea-Captain in Africa, published in 1929. He wrote steadily throughout his newspaper career, producing books for both adults and children. In 1957 be became the founding editor of the Houghton Mifflin imprint, North Star Books.

Many of North’s early books quarry his own childhood or are set in the Midwest. And, as so often happens, many of his books were originally stories created for his two children. Growing up in a rural setting, he had many animals as pets beyond Rascal the raccoon. These included cats, dogs, skunks and a crow named Edgar Allan Poe (AKA Poe the Crow and whose vice was to perch near congregating Methodists cawing rudely at them). Not surprisingly, animals are the center for many of his stories including Midnight and Jeremiah, So Dear to My Heart, and of course, Rascal.

In his career at North Star books, North edited more than thirty history books as well as writing half dozen himself including George Washington, Frontier Colonel and Abe Lincoln: Log Cabin to White House.

So Dear to My Heart and Rascal were both made into films.

Fortunately four of his five most popular books (Rascal, The Wolfling, George Washington and Abe Lincoln) are all still in print.

Try them out, but start with Rascal to warm your heart and grab the attention of your Independent Readers.

Sterling North passed away December 22, 1974 in Morristown, New Jersey.

Independent Readers

Abe Lincoln: Log Cabin to White House by Sterling North Suggested

George Washington, Frontier Colonel by Sterling North Suggested

Rascal: A Memoir of a Better Era by Sterling North and illustrated by John Schoenherr Highly Recommended

The Wolfling: A Documentary Novel of the Eighteen-Seventies by Sterling North Suggested

Elsa Beskow
February 11, 1874 – June 30, 1953 Stockholm, Sweden

If you have never visited Scandinavia and you are casting around for ideas of places to visit, I would suggest that it should be close to the top of your wish-list. Sweden in particular. I was very fortunate to live there in the early 1970’s. It was a somewhat unfortunate time to be an American resident given America’s involvement in the Vietnam war to which Sweden was strongly opposed.

Ignoring that small bump, though, Sweden has been one of my favorite places that I have ever lived. Physically, it is a relatively inhospitable countryside with lots of granite and, in general, poor soil but it is still strikingly beautiful with its forests, lakes, silver birches, clean air and balanced living. And, if you grew up accustomed to a winter environment, the winters can be spectacular. If you are a sunshine person, it is a different story of course.

Swedes have developed a knack for making the most of the modest endowments of their country, particularly in the arts. As if to compensate for the half of the year in which the sun makes only a perfunctory appearance (and even then is often hidden behind clouds), the Scandinavian style tends towards a simplicity, lightness, and colorfulness which I find immensely attractive. One of the artists whose work you will see scattered around the TTMD site is Carl Larsson who is very much in this tradition of light, colorful painting.

While there is a stereotype of the morose, gloomy Scandinavian, probably based on the dark winters and Ingmar Bergman; in fact, there is a strong tradition of sociability despite varying levels of formality.

Interlude for Scandinavian Joke Playing to Stereotypes

Six Scandinavians are shipwrecked and cast adrift in a lifeboat. After the first day the two Danes have organized a party with singing and carousing. At the end of three months being adrift, the two Norwegians finally figure out how to distill alcohol from seawater and set to drinking their concerns away.

At the end of six months of drifting, the first Swede turns to the second and says, “Hello, my name is Anders”.

One of the more amazing cultural coincidences to occur, as they sometimes do, was that two seminal children’s writers should have lived basically in the same time and place. Astrid Lindgren (of Pippi Longstocking fame) and Elsa Beskow, both Swedes living in the first half of the 20th century, had a significant impact on children’s books far outside the boundaries of their relatively small country. Elsa Beskow (February 11, 1874 – June 30, 1953 ) preceded Lindgren (November 14, 1907 – January 28, 2002) by a generation but there was a period of ten or so years when they overlapped in writing books. I don’t know and have never seen anything indicating whether these two giants ever met.

Astrid Lindgren was by far the more prolific of the two and was strictly an author with a wide range of writing styles and themes. Elsa Beskow was by training an artist who illustrated all the books she wrote, of which there were approximately forty. And whereas Lindgren wrote everything from light hearted humorous stories to deeply felt stories addressing death and tragedy, Elsa Beskow’s work tends to be somewhat more straightforward.

That is not to say that Beskow’s work is insubstantial. She wrote beautifully illustrated ABC books as well as a popular early reader that was used extensively in the 1930’s. What she is best known for, though, are a cluster of twenty or so books that depict children, usually in a Swedish summer countryside. Nature is both abundant and central to the story. While the drawings are all done in a realistically beautiful watercolor and ink combination with crisp, but not garish, colors, there is usually some element of fantasy. Typically, the children are either dealing with personifications of the plants, trees and fruits and/or the children have shrunk to the size of those fruits so that they are essentially elf-like.

There are often creatures from Scandinavian mythology lurking around the edges of the stories: elves, gnomes, witches, etc. But usually this is, as it were, local color. These stories are beautiful places where there may be some tension and drama but no-one is ever at real risk of terrible things happening. Tragedy and all the other evils in Pandora’s box just don’t get much of a look-in.

It is interesting to note that there were three children’s book illustrators working across the globe at this time, each of whom worked primarily in watercolor, each of whom used their national flora and fauna as the primary setting of their stories, each of whom used an element of fantasy in their stories, each of whom evoked the best and most positive of their respective national traditions, and each of whose work became iconic for children’s stories of their nation, Elsa Beskow (Sweden, February 11, 1874 – June 30, 1953), Beatrix Potter (England, July 28, 1866 – December 22, 1943) , and May Gibbs (Australia January 17, 1877 – November 27, 1969).

As is often the case with positive, cheery stories where the protagonists focus on being kind and doing the right thing, Beskow’s books went through a period of criticism in the 1960’s and 70’s for being too middle-class, not concerned enough with the dark side of life, inappropriately positive, and so on. Fortunately, most children don’t have advanced degrees in criticism and victimology and so Beskow’s books have gone on being admired and enjoyed from generation to generation.

Picture Books

Around the Year by Elsa Beskow Recommended

Aunt Green, Aunt Brown and Aunt Lavender by Elsa Beskow Suggested

Children of the Forest by Elsa Beskow Recommended

Christopher’s Harvest Time by Elsa Beskow Highly Recommended

Peter and Lotta’s Adventure by Elsa Beskow Suggested

Peter and Lotta’s Christmas by Elsa Beskow Suggested

Peter’s Old House by Elsa Beskow Highly Recommended

The Sun Egg by Elsa Beskow Recommended

Woody, Hazel and Little Pip by Elsa Beskow Suggested