| Ezra Jack Keats | |
|---|---|
| Born | Jacob Ezra Katz March 11, 1916 Brooklyn, New York |
| Died | May 6, 1983 |
| Occupation | Illustrator, Writer |
| Nationality | American |
| Notable work(s) | The Snowy Day (1962) |
| Notable award(s) | Caldecott Medal |
Ezra Jack Keats (March 11, 1916 – May 6, 1983) (born Jacob Ezra Katz), Caldecott-winning author of The Snowy Day, was one of the most important children's literature authors and illustrators of the 20th Century.
Keats is best known for introducing multiculturalism into mainstream American children's literature. He was one of the first children’s book authors to use an urban setting for his stories and he developed the use of collage as a medium for illustration.
Contents |
Ezra Jack Keats was born Jacob (Jack) Ezra Katz on March 11, 1916 in East New York, Brooklyn to Benjamin Katz and Augusta Podgainy, Polish immigrants of Jewish descent.
From a very young age, Ezra found great joy in making pictures. Ezra couldn't afford art supplies, so he created pictures from scraps of wood, cloth and any paper that he could collect. Benjamin Katz didn't approve of his son's affection for making art and insisted that an artist lives a terrible, hungry life. Perhaps to prove this point, Mr. Katz would bring home paint and brushes home from the restaurant saying "If you don’t think artists starve, well, let me tell you. One man came in the other day and swapped me a tube of paint for a bowl of soup.”
Ezra attended Thomas Jefferson High School, where he won a national contest run by the Scholastic Publishing Company for an oil painting depicting unemployed men warming themselves around a fire.[1] Upon graduation from high school, Ezra was awarded the senior class’s medal for excellence in art. Benjamin Katz died in the street of a heart attack in January 1935, on the day before Ezra was to receive this award. Ezra was called upon to identify the body, and it was then that he discovered in his father’s wallet the carefully preserved newspaper clippings that reported on the notable artistic achievements of his son.
Ezra worked under the Works Progress Administration (WPA) as a mural painter, after which, he began illustrating comic books and worked for the Captain Marvel comic strip. In 1943, Keats entered the service of the United States Army, where he designed camouflage patterns. After returning home, Ezra illustrated for The Reader’s Digest, The New York Times Book Review, Colliers and Playboy, among others. Two years after the war, in reaction to the anti-Semitic prejudices of the time, Ezra legally changed his name to Ezra Jack Keats.
In 1954, Keats illustrated Jubilant for Sure by Elisabeth Hubbard Lansing was published. Keats, in an unpublished autobiography, stated: “I didn’t even ask to get into children’s books.” In the years that followed, Keats was hired to illustrate many children’s books written by other authors, among them being the Danny Dunn adventure series.
My Dog is Lost was Keats’ first attempt at writing his own children’s book. The main character is a boy, newly arrived in New York City from Puerto Rico, named Juanito. Juanito speaks only Spanish, and has lost his dog. In searching the city, Juanito meets children from different sections of New York, such as Chinatown and Little Italy. Even in this very early book Keats was innovative in his use of minority children as central characters.
In the two years that followed, Keats worked on a book featuring a little boy named Peter. An article Keats had clipped from Life magazine in 1940 inspired Peter. “Then began an experience that turned my life around — working on a book with a black kid as hero. None of the manuscripts I’d been illustrating featured any black kids — except for token blacks in the background. My book would have him there simply because he should have been there all along. Years before I had cut from a magazine a strip of photos of a little black boy. I often put them on my studio walls before I’d begun to illustrate children’s books. I just loved looking at him. This was the child who would be the hero of my book.”
The book featuring Peter, The Snowy Day, received the prestigious Caldecott Award 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 adolescence in Pet Show.
Mr. Keats illustrated 33 books and also wrote 22 of the books.[2] In 1983, Keats died at the age of 67 following a heart attack. His last projects included designing the sets for a musical version of his book The Trip (which would later become the musical Captain Louie), designing a poster for the New Theater of Brooklyn, and writing and illustrating The Giant Turnip, a beloved folktale. He never married.
The Ezra Jack Keats Book Award was established in 1985 to recognize and encourage authors and illustrators new to the field of children's books. The Ezra Jack Keats New Writer and New Illustrator Awards are given annually to an outstanding new writer and an outstanding new illustrator of picture books for children (age 9 and younger) and are presented jointly by the New York Public Library and the Ezra Jack Keats Foundation.
Over his career, Keats illustrated over 85 books for children, also writing the stories for 24 of them. The Ezra Jack Keats Archive is housed at The University of Southern Mississippi as part of the deGrummond Children's Literature Collection.
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. Following a child's growth was novel. The Snowy Day became a classic in children's literature, along with the books that follow it.
In the books that Keats wrote and illustrated, he used a number of innovative techniques to portray his subjects in a unique manner. One of these was his blending of gouache with collage, as well as other multimedia art formats. Another was the problem-solving aspect of his books—each main character solves a problem that faces children of that age. A feature of his characters is that they evolve in dealing with the changing problems that confront children as they grow up. For instance, in The Snowy Day, little Peter, about four years old, realizes that he should not try to join in some of the activities of the bigger children when he is knocked down by a stray snowball. As Peter grows, he learns how to react to the problems of becoming an older brother (Peter’s Chair), to stand up to the ridicule of his peers when he decides to invite a girl, his friend Amy, to his birthday party (A Letter to Amy), and to avoid the violence of a gang of older boys (Goggles!).
Many of Keats' stories illustrate family life and the simple pleasures that a child has in his daily routine. Jennie's Hat illustrates the excitement of a child waiting for a present, and the anticipation of what the present would look like. In Louie, a special child learns about a simple act of unselfish kindness through a puppet show. Goggles tells the story of finding a pair of goggles, and the chase that follows the boys through the streets of a neighborhood, when the big bullies want to snatch the goggles from them. 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.