My favorite thing about creating books is the pleasure of turning readers on in stories of the past, present and even future,
The wonder of words and pictures! Ed Young Source
Caldecott Medalist Ed Young was the illustrator of over 100 books for children, many of which he had also written. He was born in Tientsin, China, and grew up in Shanghai and later moved to Hong Kong. As a young man, he came to the United States on a student visa to study architecture. In 1990, his book Lon Po Po was awarded the Caldecott Medal. He also received two Caldecott Honors – for The Emperor and the Kite and Seven Blind Mice – and was twice nominated for the Hans Christian Andersen Medal, the highest international recognition given to children’s book authors and illustrators who have made a lasting contribution to children’s literature. He used a variety of media, including pencil, pastel, ink, collage, cut paper, photographs, and found materials. Ed Young passed away at the age of 91 on September 29th, 2023 in his home in New York.
When Young illustrated The Mean Mouse and Other Mean Stories (1962), written by Janice May Udry, he expected it to be his first and last book, but it won an American Institute of Graphic Arts award and launched a career.
The library I visit each week has a huge collection of books illustrated by Ed Young. The only ones I had seen previously were Lon Po Po (winner of the Caldecott Medal 1990); Sadako (the picture book version by Eleanor Coerr); Wabi Sabi; and Seven Blind Mice (Caldecott Honour 1992). Over the coming days I will talk in detail about three of the thirteen books I borrowed from the library - Seven Bling Mice; Lon Po Po; and What about Me?
Here is the Obituary from Publisher's Weekly. In this video Ed Young talks about Wabi Sabi. Here is blog post by Seven Impossible Things. Betsy Bird talks about Seven Blind Mice in her podcast Fuse 8'n Kate. You can find a full list of books written and also books illustrated by Ed Young here.
Seven Blind Mice (1992), Young’s self-illustrated reinterpretation of an Indian fable, won the 1992 Boston Globe–Horn Book Award in the picture-book category and was selected as a 1993 Caldecott Honor Book by the American Library Association. His other retellings include Donkey Trouble (1995), Pinocchio (1996), What About Me? (2002), The Sons of the Dragon King (2004), and The Cat from Hunger Mountain (2016). Many of his books, such as Voices of the Heart (1997) and Beyond the Great Mountains: A Visual Poem About China (2005), show the influence of his Chinese heritage. Others, such as Up a Tree (1983), include no text and instead let the pictures tell the story. The House Baba Built: An Artist’s Childhood in China (2011; with Libby Koponen) is a memoir.
“I never intended to get into children’s picture books and didn’t intend to stay. But after 50 years, I suppose I can say it’s my profession. Everything I do, including illustrating picture books, is a way of getting to know myself and a way to find challenges. As an adult creating picture books, one of the challenges is to justify the story by appealing to the adults on different levels. Good literature and good movies made for children have different levels that adults can appreciate. I can find those levels even in the simplest story. That’s the fun of it! Doing it over and over is always interesting.” Mackin
Here are some Kirkus review comments:
Smile: How Young Charlie Chaplin taught the world to laugh and cry - Young’s collages harness muddy and murky colors, silhouettes, torn papers, threadbare burlap and floral fabrics, jaundiced newspapers, and ink linework to evoke both Victorian times and the silent-film era.
The Lost Horse - Young’s sensitive illustrations portray both panoramic sweeps of life in ancient China, and the individual characters in the story.
Sadako by Eleanor Coerr - Young's inexhaustible imagination creates images with dual meanings: the jacket closeup of Sadako's eyes is also a crane in flight and, in a series of small images on the first three pages, a mushroom cloud is transformed into a crane.
Seven Blind Mice - Exquisitely crafted: a simple, gracefully honed text, an appealing story, real but unobtrusive values and levels of meaning, and outstanding illustrations and design—all add up to a perfect book.
Monkey King (Star review) - Using a combination of handmade and bought papers, Young has created a dazzling collage adaptation of the traditional Chinese legend of the Monkey King. Brilliant shades of pink, purple, red, orange, gold, and green are offset by wispy whites and stark blacks on warm earth-toned backgrounds. The colors often leap and swirl across the pages, tracing the trajectories of Monkey’s energetic somersaults and mirroring his irrepressible personality.
Should you be a river - Startling collages of torn photos, cut paper and calligraphy seek to describe love’s many forms and feelings through comparisons found in nature.
The Weather's Bet - Young’s atmospheric, textured artwork conjures the natural forces vying to mess with a mortal’s cap in this loose retelling of an old Aesop’s fable. Photographs, fabric, and paper (sometimes torn, sometimes cut) cohere in evocative collages that capture both the expansive powers of Wind, Rain, and Sun as well as the young girl’s brown skin, cheekbones, eyelashes, and strands of ebony hair.
Here is a selection of Awards given to Ed Young:
- 1992, Seven Blind Mice
- 1989, Lon Po Po
- 1982, Yeh Shen
Hans Christian Andersen Medal – U.S. Nominee, 2000 & 1992
Presented to a living author and illustrator whose complete works have made a lasting contribution to children’s literature. The Hans Christian Andersen Award is the highest international recognition given to an author and an illustrator of children’s books.
Randolph Caldecott Medal
- 1992, Seven Blind Mice – Honor Book
- 1989, Lon Po Po
- 1967, The Emperor and the Kite, Honor Book
- 1992, Seven Blind Mice
- 1989, Lon Po Po
- 1982, Yeh Shen
- 2008, Wabi Sabi
- 2008, Wabi Sabi
- 1988, Cats Are Cats
- 1983, Up a Tree
- 2004, Sons of the Dragon King
- 2004, I, Doko
- 2000, The Hunter
- 1997, Pinocchio
- 1992, Seven Blind Mice
- 2004, Sons of the Dragon King
- 2000, The Hunter, gold award
- 1989, Lon Po Po, silver award
- 2000, The Hunter, A Chinese Folktale
- 1988, Cats Are Cats
- 1983, Up A Tree
- 1996, The Turkey Girl: A Zuni Cinderella Story
- 2008, Wabi Sabi
- 2001 ,The Hunter, A Chinese Folktale
- 1992, Seven Blind Mice
- 1989, Lon Po Po
- 1988, Cats Are Cats
- 1982, Yeh Shen
- 1981, High On a Hill
- 1967, The Emperor and the Kite
- 1989, Lon Popo: A Red Riding Hood Story from China
- 1986, Foolish Rabbit’s Big Mistake
- 1988, Cats Are Cats
- 1984, The Other Bone
- 1983, Up A Tree
- 1980, Bo Rabbit Smart For True
- 1980, High On A Hill
- 1979, White Wave
- 1977, Cricket Boy
- 1977, The Red Lion
- 1972, The Girl Who Loved the Wind
- 1967, The Emperor and the Kite
- 1962, The Mean Mouse and Other Mean Stories
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