Children's Books
In the mid-1980s, he began doing children's books, starting with Tor Seidler's A Rat's Tale. He found it to be a different experience, commenting:
- Each picture is a link in a chain, and they all exist in counterpoint with the text. And although you want each picture to have impact, just like a jacket, the book illustration can also be much more subtle. It can be pondered and savored over a period of time. It's a very different discipline from what I was used to, but I must say it was love at first sight.
Charles Perrault's Puss in Boots, his first full-color picture book, won a 1991 Caldecott honor, and he won more awards with The Steadfast Tin Soldier, The Wainscott Weasel, The Pelican Chorus and Other Nonsense, The Story of Little Babaji (a politically correct version of Little Black Sambo) and Ouch! (adapted from the Grimm tale, The Devil and His Three Golden Hairs).
He moved into writing with I, Crocodile (1999), honored by The New York Times (Best Books of the Year), Publishers Weekly (Best Book of the Year), Child magazine (Best Book of the Year), the New York Times Book Review (Ten Best Illustrated Picture Books) and the ALA Notable Book.
In 1998, he was diagnosed with colon cancer, and he died on July 12, 2001. At the time of his death, he was working on the I, Crocodile sequel, Arrivederci, Crocodile, or See You Later, Alligator.
Read more about this topic: Fred Marcellino
Famous quotes containing the words children and/or books:
“It’s important to remember that children who are facing a frightening situation have three fundamental concerns: Am I safe? Are you, the people who care for me, safe? How will this affect my daily life?”
—Lawrence Kutner (20th century)
“The trouble with most problem-solving books for parents is that they start with the idea that the child has a problem. Then they try to tell us how to fix the child, or else, after blaming the parent, they suggest how we can fix ourselves.”
—Polly Berrien Berends (20th century)