Illustrator of children's books, born in New York City, USA. My Dog Is Lost (1960) was his first book, but The Snowy Day (1962), about a small black boy's adventure in the snow, is the one for which he is best known. Among later books, Peter's Chair (1967) was a notable success.
Ezra Jack Keats (born March 11, 1916, died May 6, 1983), author of The Snowy Day was an easel artist and one of the greatest children's literature authors and illustrators of the 20th Century. He was one of the first children’s book authors in the English-speaking world who used the urban setting for his stories; His work is classic, and his name appears on lists of the most significant children’s books of the past century.
Biography
Ezra was born Jacob (Jack) Ezra Katz to impoverished Polish immigrants of Jewish descent in East New York, the third child of Benjamin Katz and Augusta Podgainy. After three years, Ezra moved on to work as a comic book illustrator.
Keats entered the service of the United States Army on April 13, 1943. He painted covers for Readers Digest, illustrations for The New York Times Book Review, Colliers and Playboy, among others, and was exhibited at the Associated American Artists Gallery in New York City in 1950 and 1954. Two years after the war, Jack, in reaction to the anti-Semitic prejudices of the time, legally changed his name to Ezra Jack Keats. Elizabeth Riley of Crowell Publishing Company spotted one of Keats’ paintings in the window of the Doubleday Book Store on Fifth Avenue, and immediately hired Keats to illustrate the forthcoming Jubilant for Sure, authored by Elisabeth Hubbard Lansing (1954). It was the first book Keats illustrated for children. In the years that followed, Keats illustrated many children’s books. My Dog is Lost, Keats' first attempt at writing a children's book, which he co- authored with Pat Cherr, was published in 1960. The main character is a Puerto Rican boy named Juanito who has lost his dog in New York and meets children from different sections of New York, such as Chinatown and Little Italy. Keats was innovative in his focus on minority children that were typical of the melting pot population of New York, such as: African-American, Asian-American, and Latin American.
After the enthusiastic reception of My Dog is Lost, in Keats’ words, “Then began an experience that turned my life around—working on a book with a black kid as hero. My book would have him there simply because he should have been there all along. I often put them on my studio walls before I’d begun to illustrate children’s books. This was the child who would be the hero of my book.” In the two years that followed, Keats worked on the book featuring a little African-American boy named Peter.
The book featuring Peter, The Snowy Day, received the prestigious Caldecott Medal for the most distinguished picture book for children in 1963. Peter appears in six more books growing from a small boy in The Snowy Day to pre-adolescence in Letter to Amy. The Snowy Day is a classic in children's literature, as are the books that follow it. In the books that Keats wrote and illustrated, he used his special artistic techniques to portray his subjects in a unique manner.
Many of his stories illustrate family life and the simple pleasures that a child has in his daily routine. Keats drew upon his experiences, but these are also the experiences of children growing up in neighborhoods and communities in many parts of the world. By the time of Keats' death following a heart attack in 1983, he had illustrated over eighty-five books for children, and written and illustrated twenty-four children's classics. He had just designed the sets for a musical version of The Trip, designed a poster for The New Theatre of Brooklyn, and written and illustrated The Giant Turnip, a beloved folktale.
Keats never married.
His honors were many: His work traveled around the world as part of a United States State Department Exhibit. A novel Imagination Playground was set up by the Prospect Park Alliance, based on the characters from Keats’ books. He was an invited speaker at the Iran International Book Festival. Japan named an ice-skating rink after him, commemorating the book Skates. He was awarded the University of Southern Mississippi Silver Medallion in 1980 as outstanding children’s book author/illustrator.
Bibliography
Books written and illustrated
A Letter to Amy Apt. 3 Clementina's Cactus My Dog is Lost! The Snowy Day (winner, Caldecott Medal, 1963) Whistle for Willie (honor book, Caldecott Medal) John Henry, An American Legend Jennie's Hat God is in the Mountain Peter's Chair Goggles! (winner, Boston Globe-Horn Book Award; Doggie! Dreams Kitten for a Day Louie The Trip Maggie and the Pirate Louie's Search Regards to the Man in the Moon One Red Sunin yo
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