On May 16th, beloved children’s book author & illustrator Bernard Waber passed away. On of his most beloved characters was Lyle the Crocodile, who made his first appearance in the bathtub of The House on East 88th Street. That and its sequel, simply titled Lyle, Lyle Crocodile, were two of my favorite picture books growing up.
Obit of the Day: Creator of Lyle the Crocodile
Bernard Waber did not plan on becoming a children’s book author. He had hoped to become an illustrator and was doing just that for Condé Nast when he finally published his first children’s book, Lorenzo, in 1961.
It was the next year that Mr. Waber brought his greatest creation to life with the publication of The House on East 88th Street. A tribute to he and his wife’s first home in New York City, audiences fell in love with the unexpected house guest - Lyle the Crocodile.
Seven more Lyle books would follow. But Mr. Waber’s work went beyond the reptilian. He would write seventeen picture books over forty years. His last, Lyle Walks the Dogs (2010), was a collaboration between himself and his daughter Paulis. (The partnership was necessary since Mr. Waber could no longer draw because of macular degeneration.)
Bernard Waber, who attended the Philadelphia College of Art, died on May 16, 2013 at the age of 91.
Sources: Publishers Weekly, Houghton Mifflin, and IndieBound.org
(Cover of Lyle, Lyle Crocodile is copyright of Houghton Mifflin Books for Children and courtesy of amazon.com)
Other children’s authors/illustrators of note on Obit of the Day:
Jan Berenstain - Co-creator of the Berenstain Bears
Leo Dillon - Caldecott Award-winning illustrator of Why Mosquitoes Buzz in People’s Ears
Maurice Sendak - Author and illustrator of Where the Wild Things Are
Simms Taback - Caldecott Award-winning illustrator and designer of the first McDonald’s Happy Meal
And of course there is OOTD’s Literary page
Fuite de l’animal
Gleb Botkin
“I do my books for myself, for the child inside me. In that respect, they are selfish. They are also subversive, because I think that all children are subversive. Certainly I was. They see hypocrisy, and they know the truth of just about everything by instinct.”
Brush Turkeys by baroness_the on Flickr.
Is there one? So far I’ve just written them out like short stories, but that can’t be right, can it? If there’s no preferred format, I’d love to find some picturebook manuscripts (especially early drafts) that were eventually turned into published books.
(via hipposarescary)
Original illustrations for My Father’s Dragon by Ruth Chrisman Gannett
Neurosurgeon: Oh, you're that man who writes those children's books.
Dr. Seuss:
Neurosurgeon: Some Saturday, when I have a little extra time, I am going to write one of those.
Dr. Seuss: Ahh yes. And someday when I have a little free time, I'll do brain surgery.
Catalogers are cooler than you.
(via handmedownart)
(Source: mariemirgaine)
“The golden age of children’s literature — beginning in the 1860s with Charles Kingsley’s “Water-Babies” and Lewis Carroll’s “Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland” and ending with the publication of the Winnie-the-Pooh books in the 1920s — earned its name by turning stories into luminous contact zones for adults and children. A million golden arrows point to Neverland, and you can reach Oz by passing through a gate studded with glittering emeralds. The heft of “Or else!” in cautionary tales about children going up in flames after playing with matches was replaced with the incandescent beauty of “What if?”
(Source: stayfuzzy)
