Today (20 Oct. 2018) would be Crockett Johnson’s 112th birthday. In commemoration of that event, I have two – yes, two – posts for you! The first is an interview with the author and the publisher of the new satirical book Donald and the Golden Crayon. Enjoy! “In the middle of the night, Donald woke from his…
Great news for fans of S. S. Taylor’s The Expeditioners! The second book is out! OK, officially, The Expeditioners and the Secret of King Triton’s Lair will be published on September 23, but Barnes & Noble says that it’s already shipping. So, I would guess that you can order it now – from there or…
When his roommate, Robert McCloskey, wanted to study ducklings for his next book, Marc Simont let him adopt a whole group of them. McCloskey followed them around their small Greenwich Village apartment, sketching each one from all angles – work that would help make his Caldecott-winning Make Way for Ducklings (1941) a classic. Â Simont would…
It looks like the collected works of Maurice Sendak have exploded all over my office… because I’ve just finished a draft of an article on Sendak – one of many pieces I agreed to write this summer (and one reason why this blog has been so quiet lately).  He was one of our most articulate creators…
Comics people will already know what is being billed as (and probably is) Maurice Sendak’s Final Interview. (It was conducted in 2011, and he died last May.) So, I’m writing this for all the children’s literature people out there: here’s why you might want to read this interview, which appears in the latest issue (no….
As you may have heard by now, Remy Charlip has passed away at the age of 83. The author of Fortunately (1964), Arm in Arm (1969), Thirteen (1975) and many others, Charlip was also a dancer, choreographer, and the model for Brian Selznick’s rendition of Georges Méliès in The Invention of Hugo Cabret. He was…
But the wild things cried, “Oh, please don’t go– We’ll eat you up–we love you so!” And Max said, “No!” –Maurice Sendak, Where the Wild Things Are (1963) In June 2001, I went to hear Maurice Sendak speak at Yale University. A couple of years earlier, I’d started working on a biography of Crockett Johnson,…
