Lillian Hoban (May 18, 1925 – July 17, 1998) was a children's writer and illustrator.
Born Lillian Aberman in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania in 1925, the youngest of three siblings, she attended the Philadelphia Museum School of Art, studied dance for ten years and danced with the Martha Graham troupe, taught Modern Dance and danced professionally in the 1950s. She was married to writer Russell Hoban for thirty years, from 1945 to 1975. She learned to draw still life and began to write her own stories only after having four children of her own. She based her tales on their experiences.
Her "I-Can-Read" books about Arthur the chimpanzee and his little sister Violet, and the Frances the Badger books (illustrated by Hoban but written by her then-husband Russell; the couple later divorced) continue to be extremely popular among children as time goes by, widely considered to be classics. Charlie the Tramp, about a wayward young beaver and his family, is out of print.
Hoban illustrated the Riverside Kids series including Russell Rides Again, Elisa In The Middle, Superduper Teddy, and Busybody Nora. The last Riverside Kids book she illustrated is Ever-Clever Elisa.
Read more about Lillian Hoban: Death
Famous quotes containing the words lillian and/or hoban:
“I had heard so much about how hard it was supposed to be that, when they were little, I thought it would be horrible when they got married and left. But that’s silly you know. . . . By the time they grow up, they change and you change. Eventually, they’re not the same little kids and you’re not the same mother. It’s as if everything just falls into a pattern and you’re ready.”
—Anonymous Mother. As quoted in Women of a Certain Age, by Lillian B. Rubin, ch. 2 (1979)
“Me, what’s that after all? An arbitrary limitation of being bounded by the people before and after and on either side. Where they leave off, I begin, and vice versa.”
—Russell Hoban (b. 1925)