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Kuskin got the essence of children's thoughts in more than 50 books of prose and poetry, including "Roar and More,Â"about animals and the noises they make. |
Karla Kuskin, an award-winning children's author and illustrator who first achieved fame with "Roar and More," a 1956 book about animals and the noises they make that was her senior project at Yale, has died. She was 77.
Kuskin died Thursday at her Seattle home of a Parkinsonian neurological disease, said her son, Nick.
Among her more than 50 books of prose and poetry are such popular titles as "Any Me I Want to Be" (1972), a self-illustrated collection of poems that tried to show how animals and things might perceive the world, and "The Philharmonic Gets Dressed" (1982), which celebrated mundane routine and was nominated for a National Book Award.
Her ability to captivate children -- and capture the essence of their thinking -- in verse and prose was regularly praised, as was her wit and often alliterative style.
She could "think herself into a child's skin" by using memories of her childhood as inspiration, Margaret F. Maxwell wrote in the "St. James Guide to Children's Writers" (1999). "That she has been able to distill these memories into simple yet lighthearted verses . . . is Kuskin's lasting talent."
An early work, "James and the Rain" (1957), was "one of the best read-aloud stories" for the very young "to appear in a long, long time," Publishers Weekly said when a new edition was released in 1995. As the young boy looks out the window, she writes:
James pressed his nose against the pane
and saw a million drops of rain.
The earth was wet,
the sky was gray,
it looked like it would rain all day.
The only child of Sidney and Mitzi Seidman, she was born July 17, 1932, in New York City and mainly grew up there.
At 4, she dictated her first poem, about a hydrangea bush outside their country house, to her mother.
Her father owned a small advertising agency.
Through a work-study program at Antioch College in Ohio, she worked in sales in a Chicago department store.
When an executive read a job report she had written in verse for Antioch, he had her write promotional material and she was exposed to graphic arts.
After three years at Antioch, she transferred to Yale University's School of Fine Arts.
Before graduating in 1955, she was required to create and print a book using the school's small press.
The result was "Roar and More," which used typography to illustrate its creatures' "purrs" and "snarls."
Kuskin died Thursday at her Seattle home of a Parkinsonian neurological disease, said her son, Nick.
Among her more than 50 books of prose and poetry are such popular titles as "Any Me I Want to Be" (1972), a self-illustrated collection of poems that tried to show how animals and things might perceive the world, and "The Philharmonic Gets Dressed" (1982), which celebrated mundane routine and was nominated for a National Book Award.
Her ability to captivate children -- and capture the essence of their thinking -- in verse and prose was regularly praised, as was her wit and often alliterative style.
She could "think herself into a child's skin" by using memories of her childhood as inspiration, Margaret F. Maxwell wrote in the "St. James Guide to Children's Writers" (1999). "That she has been able to distill these memories into simple yet lighthearted verses . . . is Kuskin's lasting talent."
An early work, "James and the Rain" (1957), was "one of the best read-aloud stories" for the very young "to appear in a long, long time," Publishers Weekly said when a new edition was released in 1995. As the young boy looks out the window, she writes:
James pressed his nose against the pane
and saw a million drops of rain.
The earth was wet,
the sky was gray,
it looked like it would rain all day.
The only child of Sidney and Mitzi Seidman, she was born July 17, 1932, in New York City and mainly grew up there.
At 4, she dictated her first poem, about a hydrangea bush outside their country house, to her mother.
Her father owned a small advertising agency.
Through a work-study program at Antioch College in Ohio, she worked in sales in a Chicago department store.
When an executive read a job report she had written in verse for Antioch, he had her write promotional material and she was exposed to graphic arts.
After three years at Antioch, she transferred to Yale University's School of Fine Arts.
Before graduating in 1955, she was required to create and print a book using the school's small press.
The result was "Roar and More," which used typography to illustrate its creatures' "purrs" and "snarls."
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