[This December we commemorate the 200th anniversary of Clement Clarke Moore’s “A Visit from St. Nicholas” (well, maybe we do—see Monday’s post!). That was one of many Christmas stories I read to my sons when they were young, so this week I’ll AmericanStudy it and four other such holiday classics!]
[NB. This
post isn’t about a Christmas story, and it’s a repost of one from many years
ago. But today is my Mom’s birthday, and this author and book were among the
many to which she introduced me and which I then passed on to the boys, so they
feels very appropriate to include here!]
On one of
the most iconic and influential children’s books and authors.
Given how significant a percentage
of my daily life—and an even higher percentage of my reading time, over the
last six plus years at least—is dedicated to children’s books, it feels overdue
for me to dedicate a week of posts here to them as well. My Mom Ilene Railton
did so in my first Guest
Post, on Margaret Wise Brown and Goodnight
Moon (1947); I also spent a paragraph analyzing the family dynamics of The Cat in the Hat here,
and discussed one of my all-time favorite chapter books, David and the Phoenix, as part of the Valentine’s post here.
Each of those books and their authors would certainly qualify for a tribute
post; my Mom’s post in fact focused on Brown’s hugely innovative theories and
styles, and the same could of course be said of Dr. Seuss’s literary creations,
as well as those of numerous other children’s authors (my short list would include
Maurice Sendak, Arnold Lobel’s Frog and Toad books, and Marjorie Weinmann
Sharmat’s Nate the Great series). But I’m not sure any American children’s
author is more tribute-worthy than Ezra
Jack Keats (1916-1983).
Keats’ early life and career
read like a newsreel of American culture and identity in the early 20th
century: born in Brooklyn to Polish American immigrants, he won a nationwide
artistic contest in high school with a Depression-era painting of the
unemployed; after graduation he went to work for Roosevelt’s Works
Progress Administration (WPA) as a mural painter, then turned to providing
illustrations for the exploding new comic books industry; he served in the army
during World War II, designing camouflage; spent a year in Paris, where he
produced many paintings that were later exhibited there and in the States; and
then returned to America to
illustrate many of the era’s most prominent magazines, including Reader’s Digest and Playboy. His first jobs as a children’s book illustrator were just
another facet of this expanding career—in fact he was offered the first such
job after a publisher saw another illustration of his—and as of the end of the
1950s, despite the clear facts of his artistic talent and resume, there was no
apparent evidence that Keats had anything especially unique to offer the world
of American children’s literature.
Keats’ first authored as well as
illustrated children’s book, My Dog is Lost
(1960), instantly proved that perception false. The book featured as its
protagonist a young Puerto Rican boy, a recent immigrant who speaks only
Spanish, as he travels New York City in search of his lost dog; during his
journey he meets numerous other city dwellers and communities. My Dog’s introduction of a multicultural
and multiethnic urban world, without sacrificing a bit of story or beauty or
audience appeal, set the stage for a long career in which Keats continued to
strike that balance, most especially in the many books featuring the African
American protagonist Peter; introduced in 1963’s Caldecott Winning The Snowy Day, Peter would reappear
in many more books and grow from a young boy to a teenager on New York’s
streets. His world and experiences and stories were recognizably specific to
his race and urban setting and time period, but were also always universal and
human and full of the wonder and mystery and humor that defines the best
children’s books. More than, I believe, any other single American author (in
any genre), Keats helped bring the nation’s burgeoning post-1960 multicultural
identity into the mainstream, not with polemics or arguments, but with
beautiful illustrations and engaging stories of city life and childhood.
Last
Christmas story tomorrow,
Ben
PS. What
do you think? Christmas or holiday readings you’d share?
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