When I started writing what was then a biography of Crockett Johnson (back in the late 1990s), I thought: When I finish this, I really will have achieved something. Even as I wrote other books, I continued to think of the biography – which became a double biography of Johnson and Krauss – as The
Here is a mix to celebrate the publication of my new biography, Crockett Johnson and Ruth Krauss: How an Unlikely Couple Found Love, Dodged the FBI, and Transformed Children’s Literature (2012). Its official publication date is today (Sept. 1st), though it’s actually been available for a few weeks now. Given my own interest in music, it’s
Greetings, faithful readers. I am pleased to report that Crockett Johnson and Ruth Krauss: How an Unlikely Couple Found Love, Dodged the FBI, and Transformed Children’s Literature – a book that was twelve years in the making – now exists in both hardcover and paperback. I received my author copies today, which means that it should
Graphic genius Chris Ware designed the cover for my Crockett Johnson and Ruth Krauss: How an Unlikely Couple Found Love, Dodged the FBI, and Transformed Children’s Literature (due this September from the University Press of Mississippi). The front cover is above. The full, wrap-around cover is below. Click on it for a larger image. Trust me:
One of the many pleasures of Edmund de Waal’s The Hare with Amber Eyes: A Hidden Inheritance (2010) is its evocation of the thrill of research. As he traces the history of his family’s netsuke (small Japanese ivory and wood carvings), de Waal describes great-great-great grandfather Charles Ephrussi’s art-collecting in nineteenth-century Paris as “‘vagabonding’ … done with
The index and (now proofread!) page proofs for Crockett Johnson and Ruth Krauss: How an Unlikely Couple Found Love, Dodged the FBI, and Transformed Children’s Literature (forthcoming this September) are in the mail, heading back to the publisher. Â To commemorate this occasion, here are yet more cuts and a few other changes –Â most of which
OK, “Joy” might be the wrong word – unless we modify that title to “The Anticipatory Joy of Finishing the Index” or “The Joy of Finding a Great Index.” Creating an index can be a mind-numbing slog, and creating it while checking proofs (as I am doing right now) doesn’t make it any more fun. But
Cushlamochree!  It’s a portrait of Barnaby’s fairy godfather, Mr. O’Malley, in … 1962!  Yes, 1962 – which makes it unusual for several reasons.  First, Crockett Johnson didn’t draw Barnaby for its 1960-1962 revival.  Warren Sattler did.  Second, it’s a bit looser than Johnson’s drawings of O’Malley during Barnaby‘s original 1942-1952 run.  As a result, you can
I’d intended to post more of these in process, but literally had no time. The manuscript was due back to the copy-editor yesterday – I mailed it today, and it will reach her Tuesday. Some of her suggestions were dead-on, some were not, and others were somewhere in between. I accepted the first type, rejected the
Immersion in the thoroughly copy-edited manuscript has prevented me from getting more cuts up here, but there are plenty to share.  As noted in the post from earlier in the week, the copy-editor was also charged with reducing the length of Crockett Johnson and Ruth Krauss: How An Unlikely Couple Found Love, Dodged the FBI, and
