Barbara Cooney
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Barbara Cooney (1917–2000) was an American children's author and illustrator of more than 200 books and double Caldecott Medalist. She has written books for six decades. Her books have been translated into 10 languages.
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[edit] Life
Cooney was born on 6 August 1917 in Room 1127 of the Hotel Bossert in Brooklyn, New York, to Russell Schenck Cooney (a stockbroker) and Mae Evelyn Bossert (a painter). She attended a boarding school.
She later graduated from Smith College with a history degree, and her first book illustrated, Ake and His World, by the Swedish poet Bertil Malmberg, was published a year after graduation. During World War II, she served in the Women’s Army Corps. Soon after her service, she met and married Guy Murchie, Jr., in 1944. She later divorced, and remarried Charles Talbot Porter in July 1949.
Ten years later, she won her first Caldecott for Chanticleer and the Fox, a book that she illustrated AND wrote. Between then and when she picked the other Cal in 1980 for Ox-Cart Man (written by Donald Hall), she traveled a lot, picking up ideas to draw and, occasionally, write. In 1982 she won the National Book Award for Miss Rumphius. In 1996, Maine Governor Angus King honored Miss Cooney by proclaiming the day "Barbara Cooney Day". Her last book, Basket Moon, was published six months before her 10 March 2000 death.
Portions of her original artwork are being displayed at Bowdoin College.
[edit] Style
Throughout her career, Cooney used a variety of techniques, most used being pen and ink, acrylic paints, and pastels. Her illustrations are often discribed as folk art, and most of her stories that she chose to illustrate were folk stories. While many of her books were in black and white, her "heart and soul are in color".
[edit] Quotes
- On her grandmother and mother: "She gave me all the materials I could wish for and then left me alone, didn’t smother me with instruction. Not that I ever took instruction very easily. My favorite days were when I had a cold and could stay home from school and draw all day long.... She was an enthusiastic painter of oils and watercolors. She was also very generous. I could mess with her paints and brushes all I wanted. On one condition: that I kept my brushes clean. The only art lesson my mother gave me was how to wash my brushes. Otherwise, she left me alone."
- On her graduation from Smith College: "I have felt way behind technically; and what I’ve learned I have had to teach myself. To this day, I don’t consider myself a very skillful artist."
- On her travels: “It was not until I was in my forties, in the fifth decade of my life, that the sense of place, the spirit of place, became of paramount importance to me. It was then that I began my travels, that I discovered, through photography, the quality of light, and that I gradually became able to paint the mood of place.”
- On her receiving the Caldecott Medal in 1959: "I believe that children in this country need a more robust literary diet than they are getting.... It does not hurt them to read about good and evil, love and hate, life and death. Nor do I think they should read only about things that they understand.... a man’s reach should exceed his grasp. So should a child’s. For myself, I will never talk down to—or draw down to—children."
- On her most favorite works: "Of all the books I have done, Miss Rumphius, Island Boy, and Hattie and the Wild Waves, are the closest to my heart. These three are as near as I ever will come to an autobiography".
[edit] Books Illustrated
- Ake and His World, 1940
- Uncle Snowball, 1940
- The King of Wreck Island, 1941
- The Kellyhorns, 1942
- Captain Pottle’s House, 1943
- Shooting Star Farm, 1946
- Just Plain Maggie, 1948
- The Pony That Ran Away, 1951
- The Pony That Kept a Secret, 1952
- Too Many Pets, 1952
- American Folk Songs for Christmas, 1953
- The Little Fir Tree, 1954
- Little Women, 1955
- Chanticleer and the Fox, 1959
- The American Speller, 1961
- The Little Juggler, 1961
- Favorite Fairy Tales Told in Spain, 1963
- Wynken, Blynken and Nod, 1964
- The Courtship, Merry Marriage, and Feast of Cock Robin and Jenny Wren, 1965
- Snow White and Rose Red, 1966
- A Little Prayer, 1967
- Christmas, 1967
- A Garland of Games and Other Diversions, 1969
- The Owl and the Pussycat, 1969
- Seven Little Rabbits, 1972
- Herman the Great, 1974
- Ox-Cart Man, 1979
- Emma, 1980
- Little Brother and Little Sister, 1982
- Miss Rumphius, 1982
- Island Boy, 1988
- The Year of the Perfect Christmas Tree, 1988
- Hattie and the Wild Waves, 1990
- Roxaboxen, 1991
- Only Opal: The Diary of a Young Girl, 1994
- Eleanor, 1996
- Basket Moon, 1999
[edit] Trivia
- Cooney enjoyed gardening, cooking and photography.
