Acclaimed storyteller, folklorist and author Diane Wolkstein died on January 31 following emergency heart surgery while traveling in Taiwan. She was 70.

Both Wolkstein’s storytelling and printed works delved into the culture and mythology of many countries, and she often traveled to a country and spent time there when conducting her research. She was in Taiwan last month working on her most recent project, the epic Chinese story of the Monkey King.

Wolkstein wrote more than 20 books, including The Magic Orange Tree and Other Haitian Folktales (Random House, 1978), Oom Razoon (HarperCollins, 1991), and The Red Lion (Crowell, 1977), all of which were named ALA Notable Books.

Inanna, Queen of Heaven and Earth (HarperCollins, 1983), which she co-authored with Samuel Noah Kramer, is considered a classic retelling of the great Sumerian epic.

However, though praised as an author, it was Wolkstein’s talent as a storyteller that won her international fame, and many credit her for reviving interest in the art of storytelling fairly early in her career. “The meaning of life is in stories,” she once said. “It is the way I understand life and it is the way I often connect to people.”

In 1967, she was named the New York City Storyteller in recognition of the storytelling events she staged in the parks around the city. In 1972, she began the first graduate storytelling program in the country at Bank Street College.  She was also instrumental in establishing a summer Saturday morning tradition where stories are told at the base of the Hans Christian Andersen statue in Central Park.  Well versed in the Danish storyteller, she authored an article for School Library Journal, “The Finest Quality Dirt,” in 2005 in honor of Andersen’s 200th birthday. During the 2012 season, she performed at the park four times.

A founding member of both America’s National Storytelling Conference and the Storytelling Center of New York City, she was recognized in 2007 when New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg named June 22 of that year “Diane Wolkstein Day” in honor of her 40 years of storytelling for the people of NYC.

Wolkstein also taught mythology at New York University for 18 years, hosted the Stories from Many Lands program on NYC public radio for 13 years, and taught the art of storytelling through her many classes, workshops, and conferences.

“She has been a storytelling idol to me and was an inspiration to become one myself as a children’s librarian,” Gretchen Casseroti, assistant director for public services at Darien Library, CT, tells SLJ. “Her gift of bringing the world’s stories to children will be missed.”

Wolkstein was born on November 11, 1942, in New Jersey. She received degrees from Smith College and Bank Street College. She is survived by her daughter, Rachel Zucker, three grandsons, and her mother Ruth, a librarian. A memorial celebrating her life will be planned for later this year.

Ormerod began her kid-lit career more than 30 years ago after the birth of her first child; previously she taught art and design. Her first book, Sunshine (Lothrop, Lee & Shepard, 1981), a wordless story that follows a little girl through her daily routine, won the 1982 the Mother Goose Award, given to the “the most exciting newcomer to British children’s book illustration.” It was also named the Australian Picture Book of the Year and an ALA Notable Book, and inspired a companion book, Moonlight (Lothrop, Lee & Shepard, 1982). Both books were reissued in 2009 by Frances Lincoln Children’s Books.

“My books have largely been a celebration and savoring of the positive experience of parenthood,” Ormerod once said about her work. She believed her task in the medium was to be a “visual storyteller”—to observe life and to place life’s images into her books.

In Ballet Sisters: The Duckling and the Swan (Cartwheel, 2007), she used dancing as a pretext to explore the ups and downs of a sisterly relationship. “The words and pictures work well together, and depict, with subtlety and humor, the emotional life of an ordinary family,” School Library Journal said in its review of the book.

She also served as artist for other picture book authors, such as Robie Harris, for which she illustrated I Am Not Going to School Today (Simon & Schuster, 2003) and Goodbye Mousie (Simon & Schuster, 2001).

“The world of children has lost one of the greats,” Harris tells SLJ. “I always did and still feel privileged that Jan illustrated my picture books. How ironic that the first was Goodbye Mousie, a story for young children about death? Her caring, loving, honest, and yet gentle art conveyed the range and the depth of feelings—from disbelief, to sadness, sorrow, to anger and finally some acceptance—that young children have about the loss of a beloved person or pet.”

Harris adds, “Jan thought hard about the stories I wrote and talked with me about almost every idea she had so that our work together would hopefully strike a responsive chord in young children. The result was art that made the stories have meaning, emotion, and depth for young children far beyond words. Thank you for all that and more, Jan.”

Throughout his career, Frasconi wrote and illustrated numerous children’s books, many of which were critically recognized. The American Library Association awarded its Caldecott Honor to his bilingual picture book The House That Jack Built/La Maison que Jacques a Batie (Harcourt, 1958), and a Notable Book Award to his bilingual The Snow and the Sun/La Nieve y el So (Harcourt, 1961). The Snow and the Sun also won a Horn Book Fanfare Award.

Frasconi’s other notable works for children include illustrations for Gabriela Mistral’s Crickets and Frogs: A Fable in Spanish and English (Athenium, 1972), which the American Institute of Graphic Arts presented in its Children’s Book Show from 1973–1974, and Mistral’s The Elephant and His Secret (Atheneum, 1974), which was chosen as a Child Study Association’s Children’s Book of the Year.

In 2005, relying once more on his trademark woodcuts, he illustrated a new edition of Langston Hughes’ poem in the picture book Let America Be America Again (Braziller, 2005). School Library Journal described his portrayal of the poem’s characters as “powerful,” with “especially moving faces” and “expressions that are at once individual and universal.”

Born in 1919 in Buenos Aires, Argentina, Frasconi was raised in Uruguay but moved to the United States in 1945 after World War II. At age twelve, he worked as a print-maker’s apprentice and eventually went on to study at the Art Students’ League in New York. He briefly worked as a guard at the Santa Barbara Museum of Art, where he later he presented his first solo art show.

Originally inspired by the woodcuts of Paul Gaugin, Frasconi’s own distinguished art career spanned over fifty years. He illustrated more than 100 books, including works by Pablo Neruda and Jorge Luis Borges, and his artwork has appeared in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Museum of Modern Art, the Library of Congress, The Brooklyn Museum of Art, and in exhibitions worldwide.

His major acclaimed work, “The Disappeared,” depicts the torture, incarceration, and deaths of citizens in Uruguay during dictatorship. The dramatic series of woodcuts took him 10 years to complete.`

McDermott’s career spanned a 49-year period and included such acclaimed and diverse folktales as Anansi the Spider: A Tale from the Ashanti (Holt, 1972), a Caldecott Honor book and an animated film; Arrow to the Sun (Viking, 1974) the Caldecott Medal winner and also an animated film; and Raven: A Trickster Tale from the Pacific Northwest, (Harcourt, 1993), a Caldecott Honor book and Boston Globe-Horn Book Honor Award winner. The film version of Anansi won the Blue Ribbon at the American Film Festival when it debuted, and Wilson Library Bulletin called it one of “the two most popular children’s films” produced that year.

From the beginning of his career, those who worked with McDermott recognized his talent.

“He was a totally independent voice at the time, and his technique and training in film taught him a tightness of scale, bravura use of color, and use of symbolism which was utterly unlike other illustrators of the period,” George Nicholson, McDermott’s editor on Arrow to the Sun, tells SLJ.

And after a long career filled with high-caliber works from start to finish, “There is still no one who equals him in my view,” Nicholson says.

Nicholson was head of children’s publishing at what was then Holt, Rinehart & Winston when he first discovered McDermott at a film festival in 1970, at which he was screening Anansi and another film, The Magic Tree, a folktale of the Congo. Nicholson immediately envisioned the possibilities of transforming both works into beautiful picture books.

“I was bowled over by the several films I saw there which were unlike anything I had even seen,” says Nicholson, who is currently a senior agent at Sterling Lord Literistic. “I was so taken with both Anansi and The Magic Tree that after serious discussions with Gerald about how these films might become books I bought them both.”  They soon realized, however, that—though the American picture book was deeply cinematic in its structure—McDermott had to reconceive the art altogether to capture the pacing and dynamism of the film, he says.

When Nicholson moved to Viking, he worked with McDermott on Arrow to the Sun, which scored a picture book’s most prestigious honor. Notably, winning the Caldecott Medal for the book was something McDermott felt was an honor for both book and film, says Nicholson.

“Gerald was a marvelous storyteller,” Regina Hayes, former publisher of Viking Children’s Books, tells SLJ. “He had a deep knowledge of folklore and myth, and he also had the ability to adapt his artistic style to suit each story, from Native American legend to Irish tall tales.”

McDermott also added many more picture book titles to his expansive global “Trickster Tales” series: Papagayo: The Mischief Maker (Windmill/Wanderer, 1980; reissued by Harcourt, 1992 ), a Brazilian folktale; Zomo the Rabbit: A Trickster Tale from West Africa (Harcourt, 1992); Coyote: A Trickster Tale from the American Southwest (Harcourt, 1994); Jabuti the Tortoise: A Trickster Tale from the Amazon (Harcourt, 2001); Pig-Boy: A Trickster Tale from Hawaii (Harcourt, 2009); and Monkey: A Trickster Tale from India (Harcourt, 2011).

“Gerald McDermott’s trickster tales always worked magic with my 2nd graders. The engaging, accessible text and bright art pulled reader-listeners in,” remembers Mollie Welsh Kruger, former 2^nd grade teacher and current graduate faculty of Bank Street College of Education. “One year, my class created their own stage production of Zomo the Rabbit that left the lower school in stitches.”

Considered in his lifetime an expert in mythology and folktales, McDermott was a disciple of the famed mythologist and writer Joseph Campbell, one friend recalls.

Says Arnold Adoff, children’s poet and husband of the late Virginia Hamilton, award-winning children’s author, “When Virginia and I first entered the world of children’s books, Gerald was one of the first people we met. [He] was…unguarded and open…expansive and excited…as he talked about his ground-breaking visual efforts…he and Virginia talked Joseph Campbell long and deep into the night.”

McDermott was the first Fellow of the Joseph Campbell Foundation, and a leader of the “Mythological  Toolbox” workshop at the Esalen Institute in Big Sur, California. “Dream weaver, tale spinner, portrayer of visions, interpreter of the human spirit,” the institute says of McDermott on its website. “Through his bold, graphic renderings of timeless tales from around the world, Gerald communicated his deep understanding of the transformative power of myth.”

Another friend, children’s author and editor Lee Bennett Hopkins, remembers McDermott as “infectious, witty, dashing” and “brilliant about the art of bookmaking.” They first met in 1973 when Hopkins worked for Scholastic, and the fledgling artist McDermott was looking for freelance work. “I was lucky to have Gerald as a friend in my life for over forty years,” Hopkins tells SLJ.

Hopkins, among several others who knew and worked with McDermott, has already posted an online tribute to him, though many remembrances are sure to come from those whose lives McDermott touched in the worlds of publishing, filmmaking, and education.

Fans are confident his storytelling legacy will live on, they say. Adds Kruger, “What McDermott did with words and illustrations will continue bringing stories to life in classrooms.”

His first children’s book, the Caldecott Honor Anansi the Spider (Holt, 1972), based upon his animated film, retold the traditional West African tale of the clever and mischievous trickster. In his Caldecott Medal-winning Arrow to the Sun (Viking, 1974), McDermott once more recast one of his animated films in picture book format. The book retold the Pueblo tale of a boy who journeys to the sun to seek his father.

McDermott received both a Caldecott Honor and a Boston Globe-Horn Book Honor Award for Raven: A Trickster Tale from the Pacific Northwest, (Harcourt, 1993), a Native American tale of the birth of the sun which School Library Journal described as an “amusing and well-conceived picture book.”

In recent works such as Creation (Dutton, 2003), Pig-Boy: A Trickster Tale from Hawai’i (2009), and Monkey: A Trickster Tale from India (both Harcourt, 2011), McDermott turned to Aztec, Hawaiian, and Buddhist traditions to continue with his convention of bringing folklore to life.

In addition to his work as an author and illustrator, McDermott regularly shared his views on his craft with others through lectures and presentations. In 2001, he gave several talks in Japan, where his books have long been popular, and in 2003, he presented a discussion on picture book art at the Maui Writers Conference in Hawaii.

Born in 1941 in Detroit, McDermott displayed a passion for art early in life. At the age of four, he took classes at the Detroit Institute of Arts. McDermott went on to study at Cass Tech and then later at Pratt Institute in New York on scholarship. He then started a career as a filmmaker, producing short animated features on folklore, including “Anansi the Spider,” which garnered the American Film Festival Blue Ribbon in 1970.

“Gerald had an unusual talent for reaching both kids and adults; the six trickster tales he published with Harcourt certainly show his ability to reach across generations,” said Jeannette Larson, editorial director of Harcourt Children’s Books, who worked with McDermott. “His grasp of the cultural heritage behind his stories was impeccable, yet his books were never weighed down by his depth of knowledge. Every story is distilled to its essence; each one has a vein of humor that makes it accessible to even the youngest readers. And his artwork! Always stunning.”

Jean Craighead George

Many wonderful authors, illustrators, and others in the world of children’s books passed away last year. Their works have enriched our lives and collections and brought joy to countless children.

School Library Journal regrets any omissions. Please add to our list in the comments section.

January 30 – Bill Wallace, 64, author of more than 30 books, including A Dog Called Kitty (Holiday House, 1980).

February 2 – Joyce Barkhouse, 98, Canadian author of the Pit Pony (Gage, 1989) and other works of historical fiction.

February 3 – John Christopher, 89, British science-fiction author, whose real name was Samuel Youd.  He’s best known for his “Tripods” trilogy (Macmillan).

February 24 – Jan Berenstain, 88, cocreator, with her husband, Stan, of some of the world’s most-beloved kids’ book characters, the Berenstain Bears.

May 4 – Maurice Sendak, 83, one of the most recognizable names in children’s literature.

May 15 – Jean Craighead George, 92, Newbery-winning author and naturalist.

May 25 – Peter D. Sieruta, 53, creator of the popular blog Collecting Children’s Books.

May 26 – Ellen Levine, 73, activist and author of the Caldecott Honor book, Henry’s Freedom Box (Scholastic, 2007).

May 26 – Leo Dillon, 79, the first African American to win the Caldecott Medal.

July 11 – Donald J. Sobol, 87, creator of the popular “Encyclopedia Brown” (T. Nelson) mystery series.

July 12 –Else Homelund Minarik, 91, creator of the “Little Bear” (Harper) series.

July 23 – Margaret Mahy, 76, New Zealand author of more than 100 books.

Josepha Sherman

July 31 – Mollie Hunter, 90, Scottish author of children’s and young adult books.

August 2 – Jean Merrill, 89, author of The Pushcart War (Scott, 1964), one of the 20th century’s best social satires for children.

August 9 – Jose Aruego, 80, illustrator of Leo the Late Bloomer (Windmill, 1971).

August 14 – Remy Charlip, 83, dancer, actor, and an award-winning author and illustrator of more than 30 children’s books.

Irving Adler

August 22 -  Nina Bawden, 87, author of the World War II novel Carrie’s War (Gollancz, 1973).

August 23 – Josepha Sherman, 65, sci-fi and fantasy author.

September 22 – Irving Adler, 99, social activist and prolific author of math and science books for children.

November 23 – Sandra McLeod Humphrey, 76, award-winning author of children’s books on character development.

Sherman’s works include Gleaming Bright (Walker, 1994), a story of a resourceful young princess who goes in search of a magic box to avoid marrying a cruel king, and an adult fantasy, The Shining Falcon (Avon, 1989), a tale of love, hate, and magic that’s filled with Slavic mythology. The book won the 1990 Compton Crook Award, as the best first-time English-language novel in science fiction, fantasy or horror.

Sherman’s interest in folklore was fostered at an early age by J. R. R. Tolkien’s essay “On Fairy-Stories.” The essay “turned me on to the fascinating world that is comparative folklore,” she’s quoted as saying in the reference series Something about the Author. “Many of my books and stories reflect my love of folklore.” Writing in School Library Journal’s (SLJ) February 2005 issue, a reviewer described Sherman’s Magic Hoofbeats: Horse Tales from Many Lands (Barefoot, 2004) as a “rich combination of scholarly… historical information and well-told story.”

Sherman lived in New York City for most of her life and was a cousin of classical music conductor and composer Leonard Slatkin. Sherman, a longtime editor at Baen Books, knew and loved classical music as well, and was also an expert on Judaica and a gifted storyteller.

She was “irrepressible, unstoppable, and never quiet about books,” Jane Yolen, a fellow author of folklore and fantasy, told SLJ. Yolen recalls a time when the two were autographing books in a shopping mall as a storm approached. As shoppers hurried by, hoping to get home before the downpour and ignoring the writers, “[Sherman] declared loudly, ‘Where else can you get two famous authors at the same time!’” says Yolen. As a result of her chutzpah, the authors ending up autographing many books that day.

Bawden was born on January 19, 1925, in Ilford, England. Many of her experiences as a child growing up in Essex would serve as inspiration for her novels. Much like the protagonists’ parents of her later novels, Bawden’s father was often absent, and like the title character of Carrie’s War, her best-known novel (Gollancz, 1973), Bawden was evacuated to Wales during World War II. She attended Somerville College, Oxford, and began her career as a writer after marrying Harry Bawden. She would go on to write more than 40 books for both adults and children.

Bawden wrote several books aimed at grown-ups before publishing her first children’s novel, The Secret Passage (Gollancz), originally titled The House of Secrets, in 1963.

Bawden’s unflinchingly honest depictions of children and her willingness to address realistic topics and situations have resonated with readers for years. Carrie’s War addressed themes of guilt, responsibility, and grief from a child’s perspective, and the novel earned Bawden a Phoenix award and a Carnegie commendation. In The Peppermint Pig (Lippincott, 1975), for which Bawden won the Guardian Award for Children’s Fiction, four children reeling from their father’s sudden departure raise a pig, only to confront their pet’s eventual death.

A motif of family conflict ran through Bawden’s work. In her hilarious but poignant novel Granny the Pag (Clarion, 1996), a 12-year-old girl’s life with her eccentric but loving grandmother is disrupted when her previously neglectful parents decide to get involved with her life. The novel was shortlisted for a Carnegie medal, and School Library Journal described it as “a thoughtful, tender look at family values.”

Bawden often drew upon her own personal experiences in her novels. In her twenties, she learned that she had a half-sister who had been sent away to live with cousins. This discovery inspired The Outside Child (Lothrop, Lee & Shepard, 1989), that tale of a 13-year-old girl who, upon realizing that her long-absent father has remarried and had children, sets out to complete her family by finding her younger half siblings.

Similarly, Bawden’s son, Niki, who suffered from schizophrenia and drug abuse until his death at age 33, served as the basis for one of the characters in the Booker Prize shortlisted novel Circles of Deceit (St. Martin’s Press, 1987).

In 2005, Bawden published Dear Austen (Virago), a memoir written in the form of letters to her second husband, Austen Kark, after he died in a train accident.

“Nina was one of the most intelligent, down-to-earth people I ever knew, and a brilliant writer,” says Dina Stevenson, vice president and publisher of Clarion Books. “She was a close friend of the late Dorothy Briley, her original editor in the U.S and my former boss. Back in the days before electronic transmissions, I remember sitting in Dorothy’s office whenever Nina sent a new novel, ready for her to hand me each page when she finished reading it—I was too impatient to wait for the whole manuscript. Nina’s passionate and indomitable spirit in the face of tragedy was truly inspiring.”

Hunter was born in East Lothian, Scotland, in 1922. As a child, she loved books and the Scottish countryside, both of which would later influence her as an author. Though she left school at 14 to help support her family after her father’s death, Hunter continued to educate herself through night school and libraries. It was in the National Library that she first encountered the Scottish folk tales that would feature so heavily in her work.

Her first book, Patrick Kentigern Keenan (Blackie, 1963) (currently published under the title The Smartest Man in Ireland), originally began as stories she made up for her two sons.

Hunter’s books for young adults were generally historical fiction set in Scotland, while her work for children consisted of fantasy and often involved Celtic folklore. Her novel The Kelpie’s Pearls (Funk & Wagnalls, 1964) addressed the myth of the kelpie, a water horse that lures riders into the water to their deaths.

Similarly, in A Stranger Came Ashore (Harper & Row, 1975), a 12-year-old boy suspects that a man staying with his family may be a selkie, or a seal that assumes human form on land according to Scottish legend. Hunter received the Boston Globe-Horn Book Award and a New York Times Outstanding Book of the Year citation for the novel, and School Library Journal named it one of its Best Children’s Books.

In 1974, she published The Stronghold (Harper & Row), a Carnegie award-winning novel set in first-century Scotland written from the point of view of a teenager whose tribe is staving off Roman invaders. In The King’s Swift Rider: A Novel on Robert the Bruce (HarperCollins, 1998), Hunter wrote about Scotland’s struggle for freedom from England in the 14th century. The novel was named an ALA Popular Paperback in 2002, and School Library Journal praised it, saying that Hunter “provided a powerful sense of a very different place and time.”

Though best known for her novels, Hunter also taught writing and children’s literature. In 1975, she received the Arbuthnot Honor Lecture Award, an honor given annually by the Association for Library Service to Children to an outstanding author, critic, librarian, or teacher. Hunter also lectured throughout the United States that year and in New Zealand the following year.

In addition to her more than 20 fiction books for children and young adults, Hunter published Talent Is Not Enough: Mollie Hunter on Writing for Children (Harper & Row, 1976), a book of five essays based on her lectures in the United States. She explored topics ranging from folklore and fairy tales to children’s book authors’ obligation to truly understand their readers. She also taught writing workshops to both children and adults and served as a writer-in-residence at Dalhousie University in the early 1980s.

Born in the Philippines in 1932, Aruego practiced briefly as a lawyer before moving to New York City to study graphic arts and advertising at Parsons School of Design. Later, he worked as a cartoonist for The New Yorker and The Saturday Evening Post, which prepared him for a career as a children’s book illustrator.

Aruego published more than three dozen books, but many librarians, teachers, kids, and parents say his most beloved work was Leo the Late Bloomer. Aruego’s signature vibrant, colorful style was ideal for depicting Leo, a tiger cub who learns to speak, draw, and write at his own pace. This tale of a youngster who marches to the beat of his own drummer has resonated with many young readers for years.

During school visits, Aruego usually gave students a quick lesson in drawing an alligator, and teachers often reported seeing alligator sketches all over the schools after one of his appearances.

Aruego often teamed up with painter Ariane Dewey, who provided the color for his drawings. Their collaborations include Robert Kraus’s Where Are You Going, Little Mouse? (Greenwillow, 1986), Craig Kee Strete’s They Thought They Saw Him (Greenwillow, 1996), and Mary and Michael Sampson’s Star of the Circus (Holt, 1997).

In 2006, he and Dewey reunited to produce The Last Laugh (Dial), a picture book that conveys a strong anti-bullying message almost solely through images. SLJ called it “droll and accessible.”

“Jose Aruego was a gentle soul and an illustrator with a deep understanding of children and a true sense of fun.” said Aruego’s publisher, Dial Books for Young Readers. “He will be greatly missed.”

© Rita Bottoms

Remy Charlip, dancer, actor, and an award-winning author and illustrator of more than 30 children’s books including I Love You (Scholastic, 1999) and Mother Mother I Feel Sick (Parents’ Magazine Press, 1966), died August 14. He was 83.

Charlip’s most famous work, Fortunately (Parents’ Magazine Press, 1964), a light-hearted, engaging picture book about a young boy who encounters a number of perils on his way to a friend’s birthday party, remains a staple during story hours, and School Library Journal’s blog, Fuse 8, named it one of its Top 100 Picture Books.

His other works include Baby Hearts and Baby Flowers (Greenwillow, 2002), Arm in Arm (Four Winds, 1969), and Handtalk Birthday, co-authored with Mary Beth Miller (Four Winds, 1987). The latter two were named New York Times Best Illustrated Books of the Year. Charlip also illustrated several of Margaret Wise Brown’s books, such as The Dead Bird (Young Scott, 1965) and Four Fur Feet (Hopscotch, 1990),

In the late 1970s, Charlip devised the concept of “Airmail Dances,” where he would send sketches of choreographed dances to other performers, encouraging them to stage their own interpretations of his moves. Charlip also displayed his innovative style in Thirteen (Four Winds, 1975), a picture book co-authored with Jerry Joyner that simultaneously tells 13 different stories and received a Boston Globe/Horn Book award and a New York Times Best Illustrated Book of the Year citation.

In 2007, Charlip published A Perfect Day (HarperCollins), a rhyming picture book about a father and son spending a day together. SLJ gave the book a starred review, stating that “In less than 100 words, Charlip has crafted a cozy story that is a perfect example of parent and child bonding.”

Charlip also inspired other artists. He was the model for illustrations of Georges Méliès in the Caldecott-winning book The Invention of Hugo Cabret (Scholastic, 2007), written and illustrated by Brian Selznick. Selznick spoke about his friendship with Charlip in his Caldecott acceptance speech, calling it “one of the great joys of [his] life.”

Born January 10, 1929 in Brooklyn, NY, Charlip spent several years with the Merce Cunningham Dance Company. He began designing book jackets and soon decided to write and illustrate his own books, starting in 1956 with Dress Up and Let’s Have a Party (Scott, 1956).

In 1958 he co-founded the Paper Bag Players, a renowned children’s theater company that still tours and performs. Combining both his artistic passions, he became the head of Sarah Lawrence’s Children’s Theater and Literature Department in 1967.

Born in Rochester, NY, on January 27, 1923, Merrill spent her early days on her parents’ farm playing games and reading stories that would serve as inspiration for her own books. She later worked as an editor for Scholastic before publishing her first children’s book, Henry, the Hand-Painted Mouse (Coward McCann), in 1951. In 1965, Merrill joined the Bank Street College of Education, where she both worked as an editor and a writer. She would go on to write more than 30 books for young readers.

A strong motif of everyday people triumphing over big business ran through much of Merrill’s work, including The Toothpaste Millionaire (Houghton, 1972), a hilarious, socially charged novel about an African-American sixth-grader named Rufus Mayflower, who arouses the anger of Corporate Toothpaste when he begins to produce and sell his own toothpaste at a fraction of the store price.

Similarly, in The Pushcart War (Scott, 1964), Merrill wrote about the conflict between a group of pushcart owners and large truck owners. Merrill received the Lewis Carroll Shelf Award for the novel, and SLJ named it one of its “One Hundred Books that Shaped the Century,” stating that, “this unconventional novel is social satire for children in its finest form.”

Merrill often drew upon her direct experiences for influences. Her own frustration at the truck traffic in Greenwich Village led to The Pushcart War while The Toothpaste Millionaire was inspired by a dentist she knew who came up with a recipe for toothpaste that his patients could make at home more affordably. Merrill was also known for her folk-tale adaptations, such as The Girl Who Loved Caterpillars (Philomel, 1992) and Shan’s Lucky Knife (Scott, 1960).

“We are saddened by the death of Jean Merrill, but couldn’t be prouder to have published her award-winning, bestselling, and gently subversive masterpiece, The Toothpaste Millionaire,” says her publisher, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt. “In her own words: ‘just because [kids] are kids, it doesn’t mean they can’t have good ideas.’ This empowering message informs all her work, and, because she’s so much fun to read, her work will always be popular with kids.”

A staple in school and public libraries across the country, the chapter books followed the adventures of 10-year-old amateur sleuth Leroy Brown (nicknamed “Encyclopedia” for his range of knowledge) as he solved the mysteries that took place in the fictional town of Idaville, FL. Ahead of his times, Sobol made his boy-wonder-protagonist part of a crime-solving team, along with his partner, the spunky and assertive Sally Kimble, who was never afraid to defend her friend from bullies.

The first book, Encyclopedia Brown: Boy Detective (T. Nelson, 1963) was rejected by two dozen publishers but ended up as the most successful series of his career, having been translated into 12 languages and selling millions of copies worldwide.

Sobol, who authored more than 80 books and received the Edgar Award from the Mystery Writers of America in 1976, wrote every day until about a month before his death. In honor of the 50th anniversary of the series next year, Encyclopedia Brown and the Case of the Soccer Scheme, the 28th book in the series, is expected for release in October.

“I will truly miss Don Sobol,” says Steven Meltzer, the associate publisher of Dutton Children’s Books and Sobol’s editor. “He was a generous writer who shared with boys and girls a lasting legacy of childhood. In the years I have worked with Don I have met people from all walks of life who have fond memories of his ‘Encyclopedia Brown’ books and now share them with their own children and grandchildren.”

Born in New York City in 1924, Sobol served in the Army Corps of Engineers during World War II. Inspired by a creative writing class at Oberlin College, he began his career as a copywriter at the New York Sun and continued working as a journalist until he left to pursue his dream as a freelance author. Sobol gained some success writing historical children’s novels, and in 1959, launched a syndicated fiction column for the Associated Press called “Two-Minute Mysteries.”

The inspiration for Encyclopedia Brown came while he was researching an article at the New York Public Library and a desk clerk accidentally handed him a game book of puzzles. The idea for the series—in which each chapter ends with a solved mystery—was born. It was picked up by T. Nelson and has remained in print ever since.

Sobol is survived by his wife, Rose; a sister, Helen; three children Diane, Eric and John, and four grandchildren, Gregory, Bryan, Lauren and Nicholas. The family has asked that donations in his memory be made to the New York Public Library Public Library.

Born in Denmark on September 13, 1920, Minarik came to the United States at the age of four and didn’t speak a word of English. She learned to speak the language when her mother took her to the playground and translated what other children were saying.

Minarik responded to a shortage of teachers during World War I by teaching first graders. She began writing stories for beginning readers because she found so few of those books for her young daughter, Brooke. Ursula Nordstrom, the legendary editor of Harper Books for Boys and Girls, was also aware of the lack of books targeting this age group and decided to launch ‘I Can Read” books, which was a new genre at the time.

When Nordstrom saw Minarik’s manuscript for Little Bear—the story of an anthropomorphized cub’s forays into the wider world told in short sentences and simple words—she knew it would be a hit. Minarik’S work proved it was possible to write very simply with warmth, tenderness, and humor. The New York Times said Little Bear should be considered on two counts: “Its joyousness and its usefulness. It passes on both counts.”

Illustrated by the late Maurice Sendak, the first “Little Bear” book came out in 1957 and launched Harper’s “I Can Read” list. Kid lit expert Leonard Marcus wrote in Dear Genius (HarperCollins, 2000), a biography of Nordstrom, that the book “set a brilliant standard for all the I Can Read Books to follow.” The “Little Bear” series has sold more than 12 million copies.

Minarik’s second “I Can Read” book, also illustrated by Sendak, was No Fighting, No Biting! Little Bear’s Visit in 1962 became a Caldecott Honor title. Minarik wrote several other stories, and in 2010, she wrote one more Little Bear story called Little Bear and the Marco Polo, illustrated by her friend, Dorothy Doubleday. Like earlier Little Bear stories, this one celebrated imagination and the unconditional love of a young bear for his sea captain grandfather.

“Else Minarik pioneered a ground-breaking genre that is still thriving today,” says her publisher, HarperCollins. “She will be greatly missed by the children’s book community.”

Photo: Thomas Victor

Bradbury referred to himself as a “hybrid author,” with his works ranging from humorous and sympathetic stories to horror and mysteries. “I am completely in love with movies, and I am completely in love with theater, and I am completely in love with libraries,” he said in 2009.

Bradbury broke through in 1950 with The Martian Chronicles, and other favorites included The Illustrated Man and Something Wicked This Way Comes.

An ardent library fan, Bradbury said he wrote Fahrenheit 451 (Ballantine, 1953) on a typewriter in the basement of UCLA’s Powell Library and that his original intention in writing the book was to show his great love for books and libraries. The dystopian novel, about a future society in which books are outlawed, ranked number 69 on the American Library Association’s Top 100 Banned/Challenged Books: 2000-2009.

Although the novel had been the subject of various interpretations, Bradbury told L.A. Weekly in 2007 that Fahrenheit 451 wasn’t a protest against censorship but about how television destroys interest in reading literature.

“Useless,” Bradbury, then 86, complained to the Los Angeles publication about the ubiquitous tube. “They stuff you with so much useless information, you feel full.” He added that his fear about television-when he first published his book 54 years ago-has been partially confirmed by its effect on the news. The book’s central character, fireman Guy Montag, begins to wonder why he’s burning books to pay for a living room featuring three wall-sized televisions, with his wife pressuring him to buy a fourth. The title, Fahrenheit 451, is stated as “the temperature at which book-paper catches fire, and burns.”

Fahrenheit 451 has been banned because some think it contains offensive language and content. In February 1999, for instance, West Marion High School in Foxworth, MS, removed it from school reading lists after a parent complained about the use of the word “goddamn” in the novel. In September 2006, 10th-grade students at Caney Creek High School in Conroe, TX, were assigned Fahrenheit 451 to read during National Banned Book Week.

Although authors often say how much they love libraries, Bradbury was one who actually tried to do something for them. In 2008, the author blasted the proposed closing of California’s Long Beach Main Library to help balance the city’s budget, calling the plan a “heartbreak and an outrage” in an op-ed appearing in the Press Telegram. “Is Long Beach at war with the printed word and books?” Bradbury asked, further pondering “How can a major city not provide access to a civic center library?” The author praised the library staff and its friends, who he said staunchly fended off attempts to remove blacklisted books including his own Fahrenheit 451. He capped his piece by advising citizens to “tell City Hall NO to the threatened closure” and said that residents “deserve nothing less than access to a downtown library with ready access to books and programs to help them achieve their goals and aspirations.”

In a 2009 interview with the New York Times, Bradbury said, “Libraries raised me. I don’t believe in colleges and universities. I believe in libraries because most students don’t have any money. When I graduated from high school, it was during the Depression and we had no money. I couldn’t go to college, so I went to the library three days a week for 10 years.”

See Also:

Library Journal Q&A with Ray Bradbury

Levine died peacefully with her partner of 40 years, Anne Koedt, whom she married last fall, by her side. Also with Levine were her sister, Mada Liebman, and her brother-in-law, Burt Liebman.

Levine was a prolific author of fiction and nonfiction for children, young readers, and adults who told stories about slaves, immigrants, historical periods, and the importance of social justice.

Her rigorous research and devotion to accuracy made her stories compelling. Her books included, Henry’s Freedom Box, the true story of a slave who mailed himself to freedom; Darkness Over Denmark, about the rescue of Jews by the Danes in World War II; and A Fence Away from Freedom, which deals with the internment of Japanese Americans in the 1940s. I Hate English, about a Chinese girl struggling to learn English, has become a resource for ESL teachers, and a New York Times review said Freedom’s Children, about a young black Civil Rights activist in the 1960s, was “nothing short of wonderful.”

Prior to her writing career, Levine clerked for Chief Judge Joseph Lord of the Eastern District of Pennsylvania and practiced law with the Prisoners Rights Project of the NY Legal Aid Society.

Levine’s mother, Ide Gruber Levine, was a theater and arts reviewer for the Review of Reviews in the 1930′s and was a frequent contributor to the columns of Walter Winchell. Her father, Nathan Levine, one of the first attorneys appointed as a trial attorney in the U.S. Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS) in 1947, became a lawyer for immigrant rights after retiring from the INS. “I grew up,” Ellen wrote, “knowing there were battles to be fought and worlds to change.”

Levine graduated with a B.A., magna cum laude with honors, from Brandeis University, an M.A. from University of Chicago, and a J.D. from New York University School of Law.

Levine is survived by her spouse Anne Koedt, an author and illustrator of children’s books and a leading voice in the “second wave” of feminism in the 1960s and 70s; her sister and brother-in-law Mada and Burt Liebman; her niece and nephew Sara Liebman and Dan Liebman and niece-in-law Lis Davis; great nephews Nathan Davis Liebman and Lucas Davis Liebman.

Donations in Levine’s honor may be made to Planned Parenthood or a progressive agency of your choice.

This article originally appeared in the newsletter Extra Helping. Go here to subscribe.

Photo: Pat Cummings

Dillon and his wife, Diane, were the only artists to win the Caldecott Medal two years in a row, in 1976 for a West African folktale, Why Mosquitoes Buzz in People’s Ears (1975), and in 1977 for Ashanti to Zulu: African Traditions(1976, both Dial). Fierce competitors as art students at New York’s Parson’s School of Design, they eventually became friends and started working together. After graduating in 1956, they collaborated on every book, album cover, poster, and painting, creating a range of multicultural books using a variety of artistic styles. The interracial couple married in 1957 and helped break the color barrier in children’s books. By the time they won their first Caldecott in 1976, the Dillons had been professional artists for 18 years.

Dillon’s career revolved around creating books that educated and enhanced the lives of others, and the couple broke through the tradition of American children’s books filled with white characters. Instead, they created books with heroes from all racial backgrounds, particularly African Americans. Two picture books stand out for their depiction of children and cultures from all over the world: To Every Thing There Is a Season (1998) and Mama Says: A Book for Mothers and Sons (2009, both Scholastic), both of which highlight the similarities and the differences of people and how we express ourselves and the emotions we all share.

Their 1990 bestselling picture book Aida (Harcourt) by opera diva Leontyne Price introduced young readers to the beautiful Ethiopian princess. Their three-story collections, The People Could Fly; Many Thousand Gone (Knopf, 1985); and Her Stories: African American Folktales, Fairy Tales, and True Tales (Scholastic, 1993) by Newbery Medalist Virginia Hamilton, presented readers with African American stories of courage and wit.

In 2002, they published the first picture book that they wrote themselves, Rap a Tap Tap: Here’s Bojangles—Think of That!, followed by Jazz on a Saturday Night (2007, both Scholastic). They also collaborated with their son, sculptor Lee Dillon, on their award-winning Pish, Posh, Said Hieronymus Bosch (Harcourt, 1991), by Newbery Medal-winner Nancy Willard. The title was an American Library Association Notable Book and a Parents’ Choice Honor Book.

At the time of his death, Dillon and his wife were finishing up art for If Kids Ran the World, about children helping other children to feed those in need, get medical aid, and provide shelter for the homeless. The book will be published by the Blue Sky Press in 2014 and proceeds will be donated to various charities.

Born in Brooklyn in 1933, Dillon was encouraged by a family friend to pursue his interest in art. A sculptor, painter, designer, and engraver, he studied the work of all artists and continued to evolve as an artist throughout this life. Apart from his family, his great passion was experimenting and with his artistic style and different mediums. Committed to ensuring that people from all backgrounds were represented and respected in the books he created, Leo work touched many people and inspired writers and artists to do the same.

The Dillons’s long list of awards include multiple Coretta Scott King Awards; the Hamilton King Award; the NAACP Image Award; the Society of Illustrators Gold Medal; the World Fantasy Life Achievement Award; the Hugo Award; multiple Boston Globe-Horn Book Awards; multiple New York Times Best Illustrated Book of the Year Awards; the Virginia Hamilton Literary Award; Most Highly Commended for the International Hans Christian Andersen Medal; the Grandmasters Award for the Best in Contemporary Fantastic Art; induction into the Society of Illustrators Hall of Fame; and honorary Doctorates of Fine Arts from the Parsons School of Design in 1991 and Monserrat School of Art in 2006.

Dillon is survived by his wife, Diane, and their son, Lee Dillon.

Here’s a five-minute documentary by TeachingBooks.net of the Dillons talking about their work.

George wrote more than 100 books for young adults, including the Newbery Medal-winning Julie of the Wolves (Harper, 1972). Since writing her first book, Vulpes, the Red Fox (Dutton) in 1949, which she co-wrote with then-husband John L. George, she strived to bring a love of nature to her readers.

George went on to connect kids with wildlife in her Newbery Honor book, My Side of the Mountain (Dutton, 1959), which tells a story of a 12-year-old boy named Sam Gribley who runs away from his cramped New York City apartment to find his grandfather’s abandoned farm in the Catskill Mountains. There he befriends a peregrine falcon and a weasel.

“I believe it will be read year after year, linking together many generations in a chain of well-remembered joy and refreshment,” wrote Ruth Hill Viguers in her review the book for The Horn Book. To this day, visitors stop at the Cannon Free Library in Delhi, NY, where Gribley befriends a librarian, to ask questions about the book. My Side of the Mountain was placed on the Hans Christian Andersen Award 1959 honors list.

Like Maurice Sendak, George worked with Ursula Nordstrom, a legendary publisher and editor-in-chief of juvenile books at Harper & Row from 1940 to 1973. It was Nordstrom who gave George the green light to write Julie of the Wolves after the author saw an Eskimo girl during a visit to Barrow, AK, and came up with the idea of a girl who communicated with wolves.

Catherine Balkin, who worked at HarperCollins Children’s Books for nearly 14 years setting up author appearances in schools and libraries, remembers George as “pleasant, easy going and extremely funny.”

When Balkin asked George if she had any dietary restrictions, her reply was, “I’ll eat anything on the menu, including moose, caribou, elk, seal meat, or whale blubber.”

Jane Friedman, the CEO and founder of Open Road Media, and former CEO of HarperCollins, says George was a very strong, outspoken, and opinionated writer “in the best sense of all of those words.”

“She knew her own mind and was the best thing you could say about anyone—she was her own woman.”

Wendell Minor, an illustrator and longtime collaborator with George, says her death is “like losing my mother. It leaves a tremendous hole in my life, but we gave it our best.” The two met on Earth Day in 1990 and closely collaborated, traveling to Alaska, the Florida Everglades, and Yellowstone National Park to research their books.

“She was a pioneer in children’s nature writing and brought it to a high standard,” adds Minor. “She wanted to get everything right and could withstand the scrutiny of the scientific community.”

An SLJ review of their collaboration on The Buffalo Are Back (Dutton, 2010) describes it as “eloquent and affecting.” “The writing transports readers onto the plains and into the past, making the devastation sobering and real,” the review reads. Their last book together, The Eagles Are Back (Dial), is due for release in March 2013.

George was born on July 2, 1919 into a family of naturalists. After graduating from Pennsylvania State University, she became one of the first women journalists to join the White House Press Corps.

She married George in 1944 and became a professor’s wife, a mother, and a magazine writer. George and her husband wrote some of her early books together, and they divorced in 1963.

In 1991, George became the first winner of the Knickerbocker Award for juvenile literature, given by the school library media section of the New York Library Association for the “consistent superior quality” of her literary works.

Although highly praised, Julie of the Wolves was often challenged in schools because it included a martial rape scene. The book ranked 32 on the American Library Association’s list of the 100 Most Frequently Challenged Books of 1990-1999 and 91 on the 2000-2009 list.

SLJ visited George in her longtime Chappaqua, NY, home in 2009 to conduct a 90th birthday interview. When asked about her legacy, George said, “Remember me as somebody who talked about nature, who awakened them to a new world, and helped them restore it.”

She is survived by three children, her daughter, Carolyn Laura (Twig), and two sons, John Craighead and Thomas Luke, and six grandchildren.