Press Release from the Jewish Museum:

New York, NY – The Snowy Day and the Art of Ezra Jack Keats, the first major United States exhibition to pay tribute to award-winning author and illustrator Ezra Jack Keats (1916-1983), whose beloved children’s books include Whistle for Willie (1964), Peter’s Chair (1967), and The Snowy Day (1962), opened at The Jewish Museum on September 9, 2011 and remains on view through January 29, 2012.

Published at the height of the American civil-rights movement and winner of the prestigious Caldecott Medal, The Snowy Day became a milestone, featuring the first African-American protagonist in a full-color picture book. The Snowy Day went on to inspire generations of readers, and paved the way for multiracial representation in American children’s literature. Also pioneering were the dilapidated urban settings of Keats’s stories. Picture books had rarely featured such gritty landscapes before.

The exhibition features over 80 original works from preliminary sketches and dummy books, to final paintings and collages for the artist’s most popular books. Also on view are examples of Keats’s most introspective but less-known output inspired by Asian art and haiku poetry, as well as documentary material and photographs. The Jewish Museum exhibition is part of a wide-scale celebration of the 50^th anniversary of the publication of The Snowy Day.

Ezra Jack Keats was born Jacob (Jack) Ezra Katz in Brooklyn in 1916. His parents were Eastern European Jewish immigrants and very poor. Although he briefly studied painting in Paris on the GI Bill after serving in World War II, Keats was primarily self-taught. He drew upon memories of growing up in East New York, one of the most deprived neighborhoods of New York City. Keats’s experience of anti-Semitism and poverty in his youth gave him a lifelong sympathy for others who suffered prejudice and want. His work transcends the personal and reflects the universal concerns of children.

Keats used lush color in his paintings and collages and strove for simplicity in his texts. He was often more intent on capturing a mood than developing a plot. His preferred format was the horizontal double-page spread, which freed him to alternate close-up scenes with panoramic views. By the end of his life in 1983, he had illustrated over eighty books, most of them for children, twenty-two of which he also authored.

The exhibit will travel to the Eric Carle Museum of Picture Book Art, Amherst, MA (June 26-October 14, 2012); the Contemporary Jewish Museum, San Francisco, CA (November 15, 2012-February 24, 2013); and the Akron Art Museum (March-June 2013).

Related Programs

On Oct. 17 a lecture, In Focus: Ezra Jack Keatswill be given by Caldecott Award winning illustrator Jerry Pinkney, sharing his reflections on Ezra Jack Keats’s work and the role of diversity in children’s literature.

On Nov. 13 The Jewish Museum will present Ezra Jack Keats Family Day. Families will enjoy live music and storybook readings, create a work of art inspired by Keats’s illustrations, and explore the exhibition with special gallery hunts.

Press Release:

Author Tonya Hegamin and illustrator Taeeun Yoo are the winners of the 2010 Ezra Jack Keats Awards, which celebrate excellence in children’s literature by new authors and illustrators, who, in the spirit of the late author/illustrator Ezra Jack Keats, offer new and electrifying views of the multicultural world children inhabit today. The awards will be presented on Wednesday, April 28 at 6:00 p.m. by The New York Public Library and the Ezra Jack Keats Foundation. The ceremony, open to the public, will be held in the South Court Auditorium of the Stephen A. Schwarzman Building, New York, NY, USA.

Ms. Hegamin is recognized for Most Loved in All the World which tells the story of a little girl whose mother is a secret agent on the Underground Railroad. Before sending her daughter north to freedom, the mother sews a quilt for her daughter, not only to guide her with its symbols of moss and the north star, but also to remind her always that the smiling girl in the center of the quilt is “most loved in all the world.”

Ms. Yoo wins for her sublime linoleum block prints in Only a Witch Can Fly, about a young witch who tries and tries again to fly one special night.

For more information on the Ezra Jack Keats Book Award and this year’s winners you can click here and here.

I still remember receiving a few letters as a child from my godfather’s mother in Uruguay: letters just to me, written on gossamer-thin airmail paper and each with a tiny, brightly-colored feather attached to it. So Dear Juno by Korean author Soyung Pak and illustrated by Susan Kathleen Hartung (Puffin Books, 2001) certainly resonated with me and sparked the imagination of Older and Little Brother when we picked it up recently.

Juno and his parents live in the US and he can’t read the letters his grandmother sends him in Korean -but he can still understand them before they are read aloud to him because of the extra things his grandmother includes with the letters, like photographs or a dried flower from her garden. Juno realises that his grandmother would like to hear from him too and sends her “letters” made up of a leaf from his special tree and drawings. It’s a wonderful way to communicate and does away with the distance and language differences – and just like in the story, young listeners can pick out what is being communicated through the delightful illustrations. There is also something particularly appealing about Juno wondering aloud to Sam, his dog, if Grandmother will bring her cat with her when she comes to visit… My adult mind was immediately filled with logistical nightmares and immigration/quarantine issues: but, of course, my two young listeners took it in their stride and discussed instead the very real possibility of a cat and dog getting along!

Soyung Pak received the 2000 New-Writer Ezra Jack Keats Award. Running an eye down the list of winners past and present throws up a number of books we have loved and highlighted on PaperTigers: and plenty of inspiration for future reading…

I have not come across Ezra Jack Keats before (more…)

Before we move on to our discussion of A Girl Named Disaster and the introduction of the next Tiger’s Choice, we want to talk about the latest comments in the discussion of how to turn children into passionate readers.

Parents who read to their children are an essential element in creating readers, and Jeannine and Marjorie both bring up new ways for parents to ensure that this happens. Marjorie, whose sons’ book reviews light up the PaperTigers blog this week, suggests a virtual book group as being a way for children with irrepressible physical energy to come together in a space that doesn’t lend itself to exuberant (and distracting) physical activity. “After all,” she points out, “they are growing up with an affinity for virtuality which we can only wonder at!” Providing a way to link the world of books with the virtual world seems to be a brilliant way to keep reading alive in the brave new world of the internet. If anybody else has ideas on blending these two disparate pastimes, please let us know.

Jeannine, who read three to four books a night with her son when he was small, says that talking about the books was as much fun as reading them. She observes that parents can encourage their children to be engaged readers who can eventually take part in intelligent book discussions by through questions (“Why do you think he did that?”) and through connecting real-life activities with books shared with children. “If you’re reading about a garden, go outside and dig in the dirt,” she urges. And she adds, in the same spirit as Corinne, “As for the TV–just say no!”

Suggestions that add to this conversation, previously posted to the CCBC-net listserv, (the Cooperative Children’s Book Center at the University of Wisconsin-Madison School of Education), are reprinted here with permission. Megan Schliesman, CCBC Librarian, says, “When my husband, daughter and I gather together for a shared story (we are currently on book 3 of Suzanne Collin’s “Gregor the Overlander series), I am aware–as several have already mentioned–that we are not only experiencing a terrific story, we are also making shared memories.”

Lee Bennett Hopkins, a well-known poet and anthologist, echoes another poet, Sherman Alexie, in advocating The Snowy Day. “Read aloud The Snowy Day by [Ezra Jack] Keats; follow it up with “Cynthia in the Snow” where snow is “Still white as milk or shirts/So beautiful it hurts.” in Gwendolyn Brooks’ Bronzeville Boys and Girls….With every book you read aloud, find a poem to go with it. I believe we spend too much time TEACHING children to READ–and NOT enough time TEACHING them to LOVE to read. GET the difference.”

Let’s celebrate that difference and continue the discussion on how to make it become a vital part of the lives of children.

A recent NEA study has confirmed what many teachers, librarians, and booksellers have realized for a long time. Reading for fun is a declining pleasure, reading scores are plummeting in the classroom, and many adults suffer from low basic reading skills.

This discovery has begun a spirited discussion over how a child becomes addicted to the printed word and grows into becoming a lifelong reader. National Book Award winner, Sherman Alexie, who grew up on a Native American reservation, says that the book that made him love reading was The Snowy Day by Ezra Jack Keats.

“It was the first time that I looked at a book and saw a brown, black, beige character, a character who resembled me physically and spiritually, in all his gorgeous loneliness and splendid isolation. The younger you are when you do that, the more likely you’re going to be a serious reader.”

As readers, whether we’re children or adults or somewhere in between, we are drowning in print. Bookstores and libraries teem with books, many of which are simply not very good. Our choices are overwhelming and, as we choose how to spend our limited amounts of time and money, our risks are great. Who can blame those who look at all of the possibilities, sample one or two unsatisfying selections, give up, and turn to other diversions?

“What I find with readers today is that they don’t go off on their own to another book. They wait for the next recommendation,” remarked Jonathan Galassi of Farrar, Straus and Giroux. For those who love nothing better than finding something new to read and taking a chance on it, his observation is dispiriting.

How do people become passionate and fearless readers, who happily move on to the next book, whether it has received the blessings of Oprah or the Newbery Medal or not? What is the book that made you a person for whom books are as essential as oxygen? What is your earliest “book memory?” How do you encourage the children you know and love to know and love books?

This is a conversation that needs as many participants and perspectives as possible, and we’re eager to hear what you have to say. Let’s talk.