This May: Family Life

Some of the most notable books that capture the voice and spirit of childhood, and portray loving families, were made by authors and illustrators for whom creating children’s books was a family endeavor.

In May we’ll explore the work and familial relationships of Crockett Johnson and Ruth Krauss; Russell Hoban and Lillian Hoban; John Steptoe and Javaka Steptoe; and Kevin Henkes and Laura Dronzek.

Join us for Story Hours and adult programming to learn more about these creators and celebrate their inspiring legacies this month.

Crockett Johnson (1906-1975) & Ruth Krauss (1901-1993)

Crockett Johnson and Ruth Krauss are among the greatest powerhouse couples of children’s literature. They married in 1943 and two years later published The Carrot Seed, which Ruth wrote and Crockett illustrated. 

Though they would only publish three more books together – How To Make an Earthquake (1954), The Happy Egg (1967), and Is This You? (1968) – their influence as mentors, collaborators, and individual creators was immensely important.

In the 1940s, Ruth was part of the Writer’s Laboratory at the Bank Street School, which cultivated other important children’s book creators including Margaret Wise Brown and Edith Thacher Hurd.

There she became a part of the “here and now” philosophy originated by educator and author Lucy Sprague Mitchell. Instead of fantasy and fairy tales, it advocated for stories that not only reflected a child's immediate and real world experiences, but also incorporated their use of language.

To write A Hole is To Dig: A First Book of First Definitions (1952), Ruth asked children at two nursery schools the meanings for different words. This yielded delightful explanations like, “Mud is to jump in and slide in and yell doodleedoodleedoo.”

A Hole is to Dig helped launch Maurice Sendak's illustration career, and was one of several books Ruth and Maurice created together. Both Ruth and Crockett were friends and mentors to Maurice.

Breaking away from the didactic and expansive prose that was common in books for children, Ruth was a pioneer of using minimal and child-centric text. She collaborated with many notable illustrators including Maurice Sendak, Phylis Rowland, Remy Charlip, Ellen Raskin, Jane Flora, Mary Blair, Antonio Frasconi, Margot Tomes, and Marc Simont. 

Born David Johnson Liesk, Crockett possessed a creative spark from a young age, even scrawling his comics in the margins of church hymnals. His first jobs were in advertising and creating cartoons for publications including the Marxist magazine, New Masses. (His lifelong commitment to leftist causes earned him a thick FBI file, which is masterfully outlined in Crockett Johnson and Ruth Krauss: How an Unlikely Couple Found Love, Dodged the FBI, and Transformed Children's Literature by Phil Nel.)

In 1942 Crockett began producing a daily comic strip for the PM newspaper in New York City. It followed the adventures of a cherubic-looking five-year-old named Barnaby and his fairy godfather whose wand is a cigar. During its ten year run, Barnaby was syndicated in 64 other newspapers, reaching millions of readers and fans including Dorothy Parker, Duke Ellington, Art Spiegelman, and Charles Schulz.

In his comics and children’s books, Crockett also captured a child’s viewpoint and whimsy. His 1955 book, Harold and the Purple Crayon, was an immediate success and heralded as a simple, but inspiring story about the power of imagination.

Image from Harold and the Purple Crayon, and Equal Areas, Their Triangular Square Root and Pi, one of a series of paintings Crockett created later in life inspired by the laws of geometry and mathematics.

In total, Ruth and Crockett published at least seventy-five books between them, many of which are considered to be classics. Crockett died in 1975 at age 68 from lung cancer, and Ruth died in 1993 at age 91.

Russell Hoban (1925-2011) & Lillian Hoban (1925-1998)

John Steptoe (1950-1989) & Javaka Steptoe (1971- )

Kevin Henkes (1960- ) & Laura Dronzek (1961- )