Article 8
Uri Shulevitz into the 21st Century
by Lyn Lacy
3200 words
Chance: Escape from the Holocaust (2020) by Uri Shulevitz (1935-) is the most significant account of a young victim of World War II since The Diary of a Young Girl (1947) by Anne Frank. Uri relates in words and pictures what he remembers and has been told about his childhood on an Incredible journey of pain and terror when he and his parents fled Warsaw from the Nazis.
For his humble and heroic testimonial to resilience and familial commitment, he occupies a rightful place in history, literature and the visual arts, not only because he endured hunger, brutality and illness but also because he wrote and illustrated his book about it.
This article presumes to be my thoughts about Uri by first name because I have followed his career closely and he feels like an old long-distance colleague, but to say we have even met is an overstatement. Long ago, at the American Library Association’s Annual Conference in June, 1986, I said hello, he graciously gave his autograph and I thanked him before walking away to leave him in peace, too awe-struck to detain him any longer. I was there to promote my book, Art and Design in Children’s Picture Books: An Analysis of Caldecott Award-Winning Illustrations (1986) and if memory serves me, he had also come to promote his book, Writing With Pictures: How to Write and Illustrate Children’s Books (1985). Neither of us had any way of knowing at the time, but our two books would later be called pivotal for the subsequently well-deserved, long-overdue appreciation of picture books as a fine art form.
At the Conference, I was a latecomer to the publishing world, a Minneapolis elementary librarian/media specialist who had written my first book about art in picture books for the children I taught; Uri was the well-established New York veteran award-winning illustrator and writer of picture books for those very children I saw at school. He had signed his name in my book at the top of Chapter Six, in which I devoted a whopping dozen pages to his 1970 Caldecott Award-Winner, The Fool of the World and the Flying Ship 1969), a Russian folktale related by Arthur Ransome. I had been allowed in Art and Design to write verbosely when warranted, but Uri was the one who had gotten permission in Writing With Pictures for more than 600 illustrations and 16 color pages. My wee book had none. I haven’t forgotten Uri’s kindness; his was the only signature I managed to get over the next years from all the Award Winners.
We both remained true in our work to the approaches we put forth in our respective books (although I quoted from his profusely to elucidate my own layman’s slant in teacher workshops). In his picture books, he has always meticulously followed his “visual approach” to writing as well as illustrating which he set forth in Writing with Pictures; I remained firm in my conviction in Art and Design that analyzing truly “distinguished” picture books must incorporate language of the fine arts. Since the 1960s, Uri has illustrated an amazing number of such distinguished picture books each decade—from six to thirteen every ten years—except for the two decades in which he was assiduously working on the 265-page Writing With Pictures for adults and then the 330-page Chance for ages 8 and up. Even so, he additionally published three quality picture books during each of those decades.
Years went by after the Conference, gracefully or not as years are wont to do, and I wrote a couple of other books, produced a dozen DVDs for children and guest-curated a couple of picture book exhibitions, while Uri’s exemplary work received recognition far and wide, chosen as either a winner of the Caldecott Medal or as an Honor Book (three times), winner of the Charlotte Zolotow Award and Golden Kite Award, bronze medalist at the 1970 Leipzig International Book Exhibition, 1972 Honor Book in Book World’s Children’s Spring Festival, winner of the 1975 Christopher Award, 1976 Honor Book by the International Board on Books for Young People, ALA Notable Book, New York Times Outstanding Book of the Year, New York Times Review Best Illustrated Book of the Year, Booklist Editors’ Choice, School Library Journal Best Book of the Year, Publishers Weekly Best Book of the Year, Bank Street Best Children’s Book of the Year, on and on.
Uri’s art is in print everywhere, and not just in his own books. In 2000 for The Hundredth Anniversary Celebration: Thirty Favorite Artists and Writers Celebrate One Hundred Years of Oz, he contributed his playful version of the Tin Woodsman, pictured in profile as a tall gentleman with a benign expression, sporting a pink polka-dot tie, his tin body hinged by a system of wheels with coupling rods, and a puff of steam coming from his funnel cap. In 2018, I emailed Uri to ask if he had the steampunk art movement in mind when he had fashioned his Tin Man, similar perhaps to other illustrations in children’s books, such as the fantasy airship by Aaron Becker or 19th century automaton by Brian Selznick. After all, the Tin Man as a steam-powered figure was appropriate for Baum’s masterpiece, which was published in 1900 at the height of America’s fascination with steam and the tales of Jules Verne. Uri replied that he did not know about steampunk but, as he related in Chance, while a child in Turkestan he would sit transfixed when a fellow refugee read aloud from his Russian edition of The Wonderful Wizard of Oz.
Our email exchange prompted me to look though my collection of four dozen editions of the first Oz book for other illustrations of the Tin Man (see Article 1). Of editions with the most innovative portrayals, ten were published in the last two decades of the 20th century, followed by another ten since Uri’s Tin Man at the beginning of the 21st century. Astounded by the difference in these modern-day illustrations compared to ones of my childhood, I knew I had a new book to write—and I expanded on the idea to involve twelve children’s classics that inspired illustrators into the 21st century (articles in this blog continue as a result of that effort).
In the 21st century alone, in addition to Chance, Uri has contributed seven picture books and two illustrated storybooks, all but one written by himself. For the storybook Daughters of Fire: Heroines of the Bible (2001), intended for ages 8 and up, Fran Manushkin retells stories from the Bible and folklore about women who “have given the Jewish people many of their most cherished traditions and holidays.” For each of the ten chapters, Uri contributed an eloquent single-page, mixed-media color illustration depicting a scene in the story. For his own fictional, illustrated storybook of The Travels of Benjamin of Tudela: Through Three Continents in the Twelfth Century (2005), Uri researched extensively, traveled part of Benjamin’s route himself and took certain liberties with a first-person narration “to give young readers a glimpse of what travel and living conditions were like in medieval times.” His highly-detailed paintings of exotic lands and peoples fill every page and have been likened to Persian miniatures and medieval manuscripts. Uri’s personal interest in ships shows up in Benjamin’s water travels by barge, riverboats and sea-going vessels, the last of which ends in shipwreck before the weary traveler makes his way home safely to Tudela.
His work for young children is most distinguished by a forthright use of bold colors. Outlined figures have little modeling while intriguing settings have clever details not in the text that youngsters delight in poring over again and again. Necessary darkness for a somber event is not dwelt upon but is lightened like daybreak by childlike wonder and joy. He never disappoints with his warm portrayals, often comical but never insensitive, sometimes sad but emanating a sense of hope.
A veteran in picture book art and design, Uri displays in this 21st century picture book collection his meticulous whole book design. He favors starting formally with a single illustration on the front cover, vignette on the title page and with rare exceptions, solid-colored endpapers and a vignette on the back cover. In between, he demonstrates absolute control of multiple vignettes on the same page as well as single page, three-quarter page and double page illustrations, either framed by white space or bleeding off the pages’ edge, all of which move visuals along wordlessly or in sync with text placed below, above or to the sides.
As a two-dimensional artist fascinated with creation of implied space on the picture plane, he accentuates the interdependence of figure, ground and negative space, often achieved through his structural use of skeletal, directional lines for compositions. As seen above in Dusk, an illusion of deep space has figures as focal points in far corners of the foreground, with an emphasis on objects in the center growing smaller as they stretch into the background to a vanishing point. Or a strong horizontal baseline may present figures of equal weight lined up to enjoy before leading the audience’s attention from left to right and the turning of a page. Diagonal lines in other illustrations may reach from the center off toward each edge to imply depth.
Here in Dusk, height for a vertical composition is emphasized by use of a three-quarter page spread with white space and text set inside along the gutter. Other single page compositions sit squarely on each page, most often with a solid point of interest directly in the center. Without a single misstep in double page spreads, avoidance of the gutter to balance art on left and right pages is that of a master designer. One is finally gratified on that last, dangling single page to find an integral illustration with brief text to properly end the story.
Now for synopses of the picture books individually:
His 2009 Caldecott Honor Book How I Learned Geography (2008) and When I Wore My Sailor Suit (2009) are autobiographical memories which led Uri to write Chance (the first title has also been selected in Article 4 as a story to help children understand their emotions). In both picture books Uri began as he described in Writing with Pictures “a story with the familiar before proceeding to the unknown” to show dramatic “change…that is important to the hero, for if it doesn’t matter to him or her, the reader will not care.” For Uri, the unknown commonly presents itself as a flying ship (as in the most famous of his picture books, The Fool of the World and the Flying Ship) or a boy’s other flights of fancy, just as the front cover of Writing with Pictures depicts a youngster leaping inside a book to fly away.
True to form, a lad sails away in a flying ship in When I Wore My Sailor Suit, which also has the same gorgeous palette of primary colors as The Fool of the World, this time aglow with cheerful golden sunlit room, the bluest of blue seas and a vibrant myriad of hues for an island’s “luxurious vegetation.” All convey the atmosphere for Uri’s happy fantasy world as a brave and hardy little guy whose mother bid him “Bon voyage, captain!” when he left with “required provisions” to magically board a model ship for high adventure with a pirate and some monkeys. Meanwhile, a frightening portrait in the room is doomed forever to remain just as it is, that of a scowling man hanging on the wall who can not scare our hero anymore.
In How I Learned Geography, Uri’s family had left behind everything in the idyllic life pictured in When I Wore My Sailor Suit. They had to flee Warsaw from advancing Nazis, finally arriving in Russian Turkestan, where they lived in poverty and despair. All is portrayed as dark and somber until the day Father hung a map on the wall and their “cheerless room was flooded with color.” Prompted by exotic names on the map, the imagination of seven-year-old Uri transported him to fly far away to a beach, mountains, a temple, fruit groves and a tall city with “zillions of windows.” The message about power of the imagination is not merely clear as a bell; it is hynoptic in its power to pull the audience in to a young boy’s pure joy shining through the darkness.
Dusk (2013) returns to happier times and conveys the joyous effect when “nature’s lights go out” at the end of a winter day and the holiday season’s lights and colors magically line city streets and fill shop windows. All illustrations bleed off the pages to emphasize that each scene is just part of a much larger cityscape stretching left and right. However, focus is close on a boy with grandfather and dog strolling down the sidewalk, pointing out Christmas trees, menorahs and seven candles of Kwanzaa. Passersby include a prim gentleman with cravat, a woman with hat and an amused “visitor from planet Zataplat” who says all he observes is “bedy funnye.” But nighttime’s brilliantly-lit parade of toy shops, children’s bookstores and “M. Goose Theatre” inspires nothing short of total wonder for boys on walks with dogs and grandfathers with beards—because now “It’s as light as day” with lights, lights everywhere.
Uri’s 1999 Caldecott Honor Book, Snow (1998) was a delightful 20th century companion piece to Dusk, for here were the same boy and dog outside, this time because snow had begun to fall, one flake at a time. The two old friends were having a grand time, despite various naysayers—including grandfather left behind in the warm house—who proclaimed ”It’s only a snowflake,” “It’s nothing” or “It’ll melt.” But snowflakes kept falling, falling everywhere until the whole city was white. On the façade of the “Mother Goose Books” store were Humpty Dumpty, the old dame herself and a snowy-white goose, who jumped down when the boy beckoned for them to join in the fun.
Expanding the field of action into a double page spread bleeding off the pages’ edges had the effect of releasing all five characters from restraint and they gleefully went spinning and twirling, dancing and playing, there and there, until the three new Mother Goose friends waved goodbye and float, float away. Once again, Uri had given us flight.
Looking back further at Uri’s 20th century career is rewarded with two other titles, Rain Rain Rivers (1969) and Dawn (1974), that round out his ideas about children’s responses to their environment. With different artistic approaches in these older books, the color palette were muted and the brushstrokes softer as befits the slow rising of the sun witnessed in misty, moisty silence by (again) a boy and his grandfather or the rain outside a girl’s window.
In both books, atmospheric perspective gave the appearance of layered cityscape or landscape in which buildings or rolling hills recede, with gently-defined outlining. The artist’s versatility with a visual code for design extended to use of oval-shaped deckled edges for most illustrations. For Rain Rain Rivers, in contrast to a similar static framework confining each scene were illustrations that bleed off the pages’ edges and were thus all the more dynamic as rain “melts the sky.”
Words and pictures in What is a Wise Bird like you doing in a Silly tale like this? (2000) take nonsense to the extreme to tickle the funny bone and turn storytelling on its head. As such, Uri’s different sort of book design is appropriate—this time vignettes and hand-drawn lettering on the front cover are frenetic, endpapers are not a solid color but are illustrated with a map introducing the Empire of Pickleberry, vignettes on the title page dance off onto the adjoining page, and his widest variety of shapes and sizes are used for illustrations with speech balloons for dialogue.
As the convoluted tale takes more and more words to explain it all, the longer text suggests an illustrated storybook. However, as a read-aloud for a younger audience, suffice it to say that by this time illustrations have moved the characters along and remained true to the utter nonsense each step of the way, keeping youngsters’ heads spinning with wild twists and turns.
The mélange of silliness is an adaptation of stories told by Uri’s mother that must have come from deep inside her to amuse a small boy, perhaps in hard times, perhaps in good times to simply celebrate the joy of laughter. In Wise Bird, Uri’s use of bold colors, flat figures and intricate details for a half-man, a bird with top hat, and a janitor with mop all convey the sensibility of an artist with an infectious sense of humor that would surely have made his mother laugh.
In So Sleepy Story (2006), everything is asleep in a sleepy house but a little before 2 a.m. until just after 4, music has drifted in through a window and enticed the inhabitants to dance. Two chairs are cheek to cheek, the table does the rhumba, pictures do a cha-cha-cha, and dishes perform a precision kick-line that goes on for six panels and puts the Radio City Rockettes to shame. One over-exuberant dish slides to the floor, and all in the room go back to sleep again. Uri has said he was inspired by sounds drifting though his window in Greenwich Village, and he also dedicated his illustrations to the memory of Expressionist Lyonel Feininger (1871-1956). When the dishes form their chorus line, one is also reminded of illustrations by 19th century picture book artist Randolph Caldecott (1846-1886) for dancing dishes in “Hey Diddle Diddle”, about which Uri has written, “Without his pictures, the words would be meaningless…it is the pictures that tell the story…(in) probably the first fully developed example of the true picture book.”
Troto and the Trucks (2015) is an original, modern-day fable reminiscent of Aesop in which a contest is won by the slow and steady, this time by the small and clever. Troto the sports car and three big trucks have been drawn like toys—much like a child himself might draw—and the action as well might be orchestrated and narrated by a boy at play in a sandbox. Troto is proudly proclaimed the winner of a race with the gang of blowhards, who must also admit that the smart, quick hero outwitted them all. Life should ever be thus, so says the resilient boy who still resides in the wise heart of Uri Shulevitz.
Uri and I are both now in our 80s, each with our love of picture books for almost sixty years. All that he has experienced and shared with the world has made him a force to be reckoned with in the fine arts, literature and history. We owe him a profound debt of gratitude for enriching our lives in the 20th century on into the 21st with books full of beauty, honesty, humor, grace and that infectious love of flying. He is a national treasure.
Titles in this article with illustrations by Uri Shulevitz
Chance: Escape from the Holocaust. Written by Uri Shulevitz, Farrar Straus Giroux,
New York, 2020
Daughters of Fire: Heroines of the Bible. Written by Fran Manushkin,
Harcourt, New York, 2001
Dawn. Written by Uri Shulevitz, Farrar Straus Giroux, New York, 1974
Dusk. Written by Uri Shulevitz, Farrar Straus Giroux, New York, 2013
The Fool of the World and the Flying Ship: A Russian Tale. Retold by
Arthur Ransome, Farrar Straus Giroux, 1968
How I Learned Geography. Written by Uri Shulevitz, Farrar Straus Giroux,
New York, 2008
The Hundredth Anniversary Celebration: Thirty Favorite Artists and
Writers Celebrate One Hundred Years of Oz. Edited by Peter
Glassman, HarperCollins, 2000
Rain Rain Rivers. Written by Uri Shulevitz, Farrar Straus Giroux, New York, 1969
Snow. Written by Uri Shulevitz, Farrar Straus Giroux, New York, 1998
So Sleepy Story. Written by Uri Shulevitz, Farrar Straus Giroux, New York, 2006
The Travels of Benjamin of Tudela: Through Three Continents in the
Twelfth Century. Written by Uri Shulevitz, Farrar Straus Giroux, New York, 2005
Troto and the Trucks. Written by Uri Shulevitz, Farrar Straus Giroux, New York, 2015
What is a Wise Bird like you doing in a Silly tale like this? Written by Uri Shulevitz,
Farrar Straus Giroux, New York, 2000
When I Wore My Sailor Suit. Written by Uri Shulevitz, Farrar Straus Giroux, New York,
2009
Writing With Pictures: How to Write and Illustrate Children’s Books. Written by Uri
Shulevitz, Watson-Guptill, New York, 1985