Chris Ware's cover for Crockett Johnson and Ruth Krauss: How an Unlikely Couple Found Love, Dodged the FBI, and Transformed Children's Literature

Crockett Johnson and Ruth Krauss: Chris Ware’s cover

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:

Maurice Sendak, 2011

The Most Wild Thing of All: Maurice Sendak, 1928-2012

But the wild things cried, “Oh, please don’t go– We’ll eat you up–we love you so!” And Max said, “No!” –Maurice Sendak, Where the Wild Things Are (1963) In June 2001, I went to hear Maurice Sendak speak at Yale University. A couple of years earlier, I’d started working on a biography of Crockett Johnson,

Crockett Johnson’s FBI File. Part 1.

On April 21, 1950, the FBI’s New York Division reported that Crockett Johnson was one of “400 concealed Communists.”  In June, the New Haven office began compiling a file on him.  These are the first 15 pages.  (Clicking on each page will yield a larger image.) This (above) is one of the less accurate pages

Research, Writing, and Getting a Life

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

Potter in Pittsburgh, Johnson & Krauss in Normal

I’ve managed to schedule two invited talks within three days of one another.  I believe both are open to the public.  The Johnson-Krauss talk (Normal, IL, 26 Mar.) definitely is open to the public, and the Harry Potter talk (Pittsburgh, PA, 23 Mar.) offers no indication that public needs permission to attend.  So, if you’re

The Beau Hunks Sextette, Manhattan Minuet (art by Chris Ware)

Children’s Literature + Music = Great Album Covers

Many children’s writers and illustrators have created covers for albums. Below, we’ll look at a dozen or so of these artists. As is ever the case with any art posted on this website, the artwork belongs to the artists. Visit their websites! Buy prints! Buy their books! (I’ve included websites for each artist.) Enjoy! Saul

That’s Not in the Book, You Know: The Absolutely, Positively, Possibly Final Post Concerning the Editing of the Biography of Crockett Johnson and Krauss

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.  To commemorate this occasion, here are yet more cuts and a few other changes – most of which

The Joy of Index

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

Crockett Johnson draws Mr. O’Malley, 1962

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