Pass It Down: Five Picture Book Families Make Their Mark - Hardcover

Marcus, Leonard S.

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 080279601X ISBN 13: 9780802796011

Publisher: Walker Childrens, 2006

Synopsis

Our families help shape who we are―what we look like, what we like to eat, even what our strengths and abilities are. So when a parent is a renowned children's book author or illustrator, creative ability may be part of an amazing legacy.

Leonard S. Marcus introduces readers to five best-selling and award-winning families with talent that spans the generations. By opening up these family albums―sharing personal memories, scrapbooks, book dummies, model shots, and final art, Marcus chronicles the way books come into being, the way artists are nurtured and grown, and the way where we come from influences who and what we become.

Includes in depth interviews and extensive histories of five famous multi-generational families of children's book creators:
Jerry Pinkney and his son Brian Pinkney, Anne and Harlow Rockwell and their daughter Lizzy, Donald Crews and Ann Jonas, and their daughter Nina Crews, Walter Dean Myers and his son Christopher Myers, Edith and Clement Hurd and their son Thacher Hurd.

About this title

About the Author

LEONARD S. MARCUS is one of the children's book world's most respected and versatile writers, historians, and critics, and has been a contributor and editor for numerous publications. Most recently, Leonard has been named the literary director of Night Kitchen Radio Theater for the Kennedy Center in Washington, D. C. He holds degrees in history from Yale and poetry from the University of Iowa Graduate Writers' Workshop. He and his wife, the picture-book artist Amy Schwartz, live with their son Jacob in Brooklyn, New York.
www.leonardmarcus.com

From School Library Journal

Grade 4 Up—Marcus presents the events and circumstances that have resulted in five picture-book dynasties. Each chapter includes biographical information about the subjects that zeroes in on the salient pieces that nurtured artistic growth and includes numerous quotes from the authors/illustrators themselves. The featured families are Donald Crews, Ann Jonas, and Nina Crews; Clement and Edith Hurd and Thacher Hurd; Walter Dean Myers and Christopher Myers; Jerry Pinkney and Brian Pinkney; and Harlow and Anne Rockwell and Lizzy Rockwell. Marcus carefully makes the point that, although perhaps blessed with some inherited talent and encouraged by their parents, all of the children pursued their art with diligence and have emerged with their own unique styles. Marcus's writing is, as usual, tight but lively, and each chapter is liberally laced with photographs, preliminary sketches, and final art. The book will be of interest to those readers who enjoy getting behind the scenes of the books they love.—Grace Oliff, Ann Blanche Smith School, Hillsdale, NJ
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About this edition

• Publisher: Walker Childrens
• Publication date: 2006
• ISBN 10: 080279601X
• ISBN 13: 9780802796011
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 64