Tomie dePaola receives Society of Illustrators’ Lifetime Achievement Award

Posted on October 1, 2012 by Kristin Eshelman

Congratulations, Tomie! According to the Society’s home page, “The Lifetime Achievement Awards were established in 2005 by past chairs of The Original Art. Nominees must be judged to have a body of work that documents an innovative and pioneering contribution to the field of children’s book illustration, and final selection is made by artists whose work has been juried into the previous year’s show. ”

From an early age, Tomie and his parents knew he would be an artist. He received his Bachelor of Fine Arts degree from the Pratt Institute in Brooklyn, New York where he studied Art. His Master of Fine Arts degree was received from the California College of Arts and Crafts in Oakland, California. He has also been awarded three honorary Doctorate degrees from separate Universities and Colleges.

Tomie’s career as a professional artist and designer, former teacher of art, children’s author and illustrator is expansive. He has designed greeting cards, posters, magazine and catalogue covers, record album covers, and theater costumes and sets. He has illustrated over two hundred books, and written over seventy. Tomie has won numerous awards, including the prestigious American Library Association’s Caldecott Honor Award for Strega Nona (1976), the University of Minnesota’s Kerlan Award (1981), the Catholic Library Association’s Regina Medal (1983), and the Smithsonian Institution’s Smithson Medal (1990).

Tomie’s books have been published world-wide in fifteen different languages and he has over five million copies in print. Many of his books are largely autobiographical such as Nana Upstairs, Nana Downstairs, Tom, and The Art Lesson. Tomie currently resides in New Hampshire.

The Tomie dePaola Collection contains artwork, sketch books and paintings from the beginning of his career, as well as many different editions from each book he wrote or illustrated, including foreign editions. Some of the languages represented are Portuguese, Swedish, Finnish, French Canadian, German, Afrikaans, and even Zulu. Original illustrations from books, as well as paintings and other art work spanning from his childhood years are included. The Collection also contains marketing items from his books, such as towels, porcelain jewelry containers, music boxes, paper goods (wrapping paper, cups & plates), quilts from schools, and a large selection of Christmas tree ornaments designed by Tomie for the Marshall Fields Christmas trees in Chicago.

Well done, Tomie!

–Terri J. Goldich, Curator

Susan Raab hosts new blog “Artstomarket”

Posted on September 10, 2012 by Kristin Eshelman

Susan Raab is interviewing some of the best in the arts business and publishing their fascinating advice on her new blog “Artstomarket.” Read great tips like “do’s and don’ts in the arts business” by Roxie Munro and Steve Light, advice on networking and making yourself “visible and indispensable” from Michael Astrachan, President and Creative Director, XVIVO LLC. This great blog was created in conjunction with the workshops coming up at UConn on September 28, 2012, for students in the morning and folks working in the creative arts in the afternoon.

Webster-Doyle Papers hold key to ending bullying

Posted on July 10, 2012 by Kristin Eshelman

Established in 2004, the Terrence Webster-Doyle Papers contain materials having to do with bullying prevention, conflict management, peace studies, emotional response, and how psychological conditioning prevents peace and creates conflict, individually and globally. Influenced by Jiddu Krishnamurti in 1968, Webster-Doyle began to teach classes at Sonoma State University in the search for understanding the cause, nature, and structure of conditioning. Webster-Doyle also studied the work of Dr. David Bohm, a physicist who studies the relationship between thought and reality; A. S. Neil, the founder of the Summerhill School, an intentional community in England; and Aldous Huxley, author of Brave New World which explored the nature and effect of negative conditioning.

Webster-Doyle is a sixth Dan in Take-Nami-do karate, and utilizes his extensive martial arts experience as a focus for the exploration of the nature of conflict and its ramifications for the individual, schools, society and the world. With his wife Jean, they founded the Atrium Society and its subgroups, Martial Arts for Peace, Youth Peace Literacy Project, and Education for Peace (http://martialartsforpeace.com/index-2.html). His published works usually contain not only a main work but also guides for students, teachers, martial arts instructors, and parents, with worksheets, group and individual activities, with tools to chart progress in conflict resolution.

Webster-Doyle’s books, archives, and audiovisual materials are held by the Northeast Children’s Literature Collection. His books are also on permanent display at the International Museum of Peace and Solidarity in Samarkand, Uzbekistan, the Commonwealth of Independent States and at the Hiroshima Peace Memorial Museum in Japan.

–Terri J. Goldich, Curator, Northeast Children’s Literature Collection

NCLC remembers Maurice Sendak

Posted on May 10, 2012 by Kristin Eshelman

My favorite memory of Mr. Sendak comes from a dinner at Dean Emeritus Dr. David Woods’ house. Dean Woods had invited a few folks over following Sendak’s visit to UConn to deliver the inaugural Robert Gray Memorial Lecture. Another of the guests was Etienne Delessert, also a well-known children’s illustrator from western Connecticut. They discussed politics.

The NCLC holds original Sendak illustrations from the book he did with Ruth Krauss in 1952, A hole is to dig. It was one of his first major books arranged by Ursula Nordstrom. The NCLC also hold a few illustrations for Somebody else’s nut tree by Krauss, published in 1958.

What a wonderful, scary, brilliant man.

–Terri J. Goldich, Curator

Katie Davis, Grace Lin win 2012 SLJ Trailee Awards!

Posted on January 24, 2012 by Kristin Eshelman

Many congratulations to NCLC donor and Connecticut Children’s Book Fair favorite, Katie Davis, for her well-deserved School Library Journal Trailee Award given annually at ALA for the video trailers that best promote books for children and teens. “Book trailers raise awareness about the big power of little books to reach readers,” said Davis after learning that she had won. Davis, who also illustrated the book that she co-authored with her husband Jerry Davis, thanked “all those nice little chickens (and people!) who voted” for her entry. In the category of Publisher/Author Created for Elementary Readers , the trailer tells the story of Little Chicken’s Big Day, when Little Chicken goes with his mother to do errands and gets lost. The School Library Journal web site has more information about the Trailee Awards including winners in other categories, such as Grace Lin’s Award in the Student Created for Elementary Readers category for Where the Mountain Meets the Moon (Little, Brown, 2009; Trailer by the members of the Bookie Woogie Book Blog). Grace Lin appeared at the 2011 Connecticut Children’s Book Fair and we hope to see her again soon. Congratulations, Katie and Grace!

New James Marshall book dummy donated

Posted on July 1, 2011 by Kristin Eshelman

[slideshow]The family of the late Coleen Salley have donated James Marshall’s book dummy for his “The Cut-ups cut loose” to the NCLC. The charming, 32-page dummy is accompanied by a letter from Mr. Marshall to Ms. Salley with a note about “our little book.” The dummy is black and white with some color on the title page. The book was published in 1987 by Viking Kestrel and is dedicated to Ms. Salley. This piece is the only item in the Marshall Papers for this title. Thank you, Salley Family, for this important addition to the NCLC.

Connecticut Book Festival this weekend!

Posted on May 17, 2011 by Kristin Eshelman

CT Book Festival logo

The countdown is on for the CT Book Festival this weekend! The weather will be great, there are lots of wonderful authors and panels to hear, there will be tons of books for sale and all sorts of stuff for kids to do, too. See you at Book Fest!

Ruth Plumly Thompson 1939 “Oz” Book Donated to NCLC

Posted on May 5, 2011 by Kristin Eshelman

Following the death in 1919 of L. Frank Baum, the author of the original The Wonderful Wizard of Oz, Ruth Plumly Thompson was hired by Baum’s publisher to continue the Oz series. Ms. Thompson of Philadelphia wrote one Oz book a year from 1921 to 1939 when Ozoplaning with the Wizard of Oz was published by Reilly & Lee. The phrase “The Wizard of Oz” was added to coincide with the release of the movie, The Wizard of Oz, by MGM the same year. The illustrator is John R. Neill, who illustrated many of Baum’s Oz books after Baum and the original illustrator of the The Wonderful Wizard of Oz, W. W. Denslow, parted ways after a dispute over royalties.

Ozoplaning with the Wizard of Oz, by Ruth Plumly Thompson

Ozoplaning with the Wizard of Oz (Chicago: Reilly & Lee, 1939). By Ruth Plumly Thompson, illustrated by John R. Neill.

Neill wrote three Oz books after Thompson resigned from writing the series in 1939. The story contains the original characters, Dorothy Gale, the Tin Woodman, the Scarecrow, and the Cowardly Lion and of course the Wizard of Oz. Jellia Jam (“Jamb” in the original Baum) is the Wizard’s “pretty little serving maid” who does not appear in the movie version. The Soldier with Green Whiskers and Nick Chopper join everyone for a dinner party at the Wizard’s home so the Wizard can show off his new inventions, two Ozoplanes named Ozpril and Oztober. The Soldier, Tin Woodman, and Jellia board the Oztober and through the Soldier’s bad luck, take off through the roof on a long adventure.

–Terri J. Goldich

Announcing a new digital project

Posted on May 4, 2011 by Kristin Eshelman

A new project to digitize TV interviews by Billie Levy featuring authors, illustrators, editors, and collectors in the field of children’s literature is now available . They are from the “Children’s Books: Their Creators and Collectors” series filmed at WHC-TV. Go to http://www.lib.uconn.edu/services/video/streams.php and scroll down, or go the web page at http://www.lib.uconn.edu/services/video/levy.php. There is also a link from the NCLC’s web site at http://nclc.uconn.edu.

This project was made possible by the generosity of Susan Aller of West Hartford, in honor of our Miss Billie. The project was also made possible by West Hartford Community Television. Ms. Aller is the author of more than a dozen biographies for young people, including the stories of J. M. Barrie, Florence Nightingale, George Eastman, Louisa May Alcott, and Mary Jemison. She has worked as a magazine editor in New York City, and her essays on a variety of topics have appeared in The New York Times, Christian Science Monitor, and other publications. Ms. Aller is a graduate of the University of Nebraska at Omaha, and lived for extended periods in Spain and France, before coming to Connecticut in 1979. As a collector of antique children’s books, she has been an active supporter of the Northeast Children’s Literature Collection at the Thomas J. Dodd Research Center at the University of Connecticut in Storrs. She participates weekly in a long-standing writers’ group and is a member of the Saturday Morning Club of Hartford, a women’s writing group founded in 1876. Ms. Aller is the mother of two married sons and has six grandchildren.