Richard Scarry

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The cover of a Richard Scarry book.
The cover of a Richard Scarry book.

Richard McClure Scarry (June 5, 1919 – April 30, 1994, last name pronounced like "scary") was an enormously popular American children's author and illustrator who published over 300 books with total sales of 300 million worldwide.

He was born in Boston, Massachusetts, where his parents ran a shop. The Scarry family enjoyed a comfortable life even during the time of the Great Depression. Following high school graduation, Scarry enrolled in a business college but soon dropped out, finding it not to his liking. He then studied at the School of the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, where he remained until being drafted into the U.S. Army during World War II.

Following the war, Scarry worked for the art departments of various magazines before making a career breakthrough in 1949 with Little Golden Books.

[edit] Busytown breakthrough

His most famous series of books was about Busytown.

Scarry's characters are almost always anthropomorphic animals. Occasionally this leads to the irony of portraying animals as farmers, tending livestock, including the infamous example of a pig portrayed as a butcher, selling ham and frankfurters behind a counter. Using animals in place of humans allowed Scarry to avoid giving the characters specific racial or ethnic traits, which may have helped broaden their appeal. His books have been popular with children throughout the world.

While his books are largely populated by common animal species such as cats, rabbits, pigs, and mice, he proved to be quite adept to giving human characteristics to a seemingly endless number of creatures. Beavers, raccoons, hippopotami, rhinocerai, owls, bears and goats were just some of the other animals to be featured in Scarry's works.

In the 1980s and '90s, many of his "Best Ever" series of books were converted into very popular animated videos, which are still available on DVD and VHS. Some of these animated films include Richard Scarry's Best Silly Stories and Songs Videos Ever and The Busiest Firefighters Ever.

Titles reprinted in recent years have been significantly condensed from their original versions.

His titles include the following:

Beginner Books by Rickard Scarry:

  • Richard Scarry's The Best Mistake Ever! and Other Stories B-Extra 9
  • Pie Rats B-Extra 10

Bright and Early Books by Rickard Scarry:

  • The Early Bird BE-Extra 1

[edit] Personal life and family

In 1972, Scarry bought a chalet in Gstaad, Switzerland. Here he founded his studio where he spent most of the day (from about 8:00 a.m. to 4:00 p.m.) writing and illustrating his books. His studio contained a single desk, lamp and chair. His wife, Patricia, was told not to bother him except for his hour break for lunch.

His wife Patricia Scarry, originally Patricia Murphy, was a writer of children's textbooks who met Richard during collaboration when he was a textbook illustrator. She is credited with writing many of the stories in his subsequent children's books, such as Good Night, Little Bear, The Bunny Book, and The Fishing Cat.

His son, Richard Scarry Jr., is also an illustrator, sometimes working under his nickname, Huck Scarry, sometimes working in his father's style as "Richard Scarry". Huck is the nickname of Huckle Cat, one of the most commonly recurring Busytown characters.

Huck lives in Vienna, Austria; socialite Olympia Scarry is his daughter.

[edit] External links

Persondata
NAME Scarry, Richard McClure
ALTERNATIVE NAMES
SHORT DESCRIPTION author and illustrator
DATE OF BIRTH June 5, 1919
PLACE OF BIRTH Boston, Massachusetts, United States
DATE OF DEATH April 30, 1994
PLACE OF DEATH
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