Millions of Cats:
Monochromatic Illustrations into the 21st Century
Article 13
by Lyn Lacy 8000 wds
Children in America have not always had colorful pictures in their books. Nineteenth-century illustrated books most often had black and white woodcuts, because simple relief carvings could be printed alongside texts. One noteworthy illustrator in the 1840s was Felix Octavius Carr Darley (1822-1888), popular for his black and white drawings in Harper’s Weekly, lithographs in books by Washington Irving (1783-1859), Nathaniel Hawthorne (1804-1864), Charles Dickens (1812-1870) and over 350 drawings for James Fenimore Cooper (1789-1851).
A self-educated artist beyond compare was William Wallace Denslow (1856-1915) who illustrated L. Frank Baum’s bestselling children’s book of 1899, Father Goose: His Book, with high-quality monochromatic pictures that were considered better than any others done at that time, rivaled only by his black and white illustrations the next year for The Wonderful Wizard of Oz (1900). Denslow’s later work in color was typified by bold, dark borders outlining figures filled in with flat colors, in a style called “poster art.” This was similar to the black-inked wood-block illustrations of colorful animals by Charles Buckles Falls (1874-1960) for The ABC Book (1923).
Also notable was Jessie Willcox Smith (1863-1935) who created a series of Mother Goose illustrations for Good Housekeeping which were in black and white until 1914, when they were printed in color for her book, The Jessie Willcox Smith Mother Goose. Smith made illustrations for more than 250 periodicals, 200 magazine covers and 60 books from 1888 to 1932, was one of the highest paid illustrators of her time and became known as one of the greatest female illustrators.
When color became easier and cheaper in the picture book industry, illustrators and children alike welcomed its arrival. An outpouring of extraordinary talent in the 1930s resulted in every major publishing house in America releasing at least one picture book in color that is considered today to be a classic in children’s literature (see Article 12). That is not to say, however, that the magic and allure of black and white ever left. Notable for this discussion is that, compared to those numerous classic titles that began 1930, only one from two years before has remained continuously in print, and its illustrations were done in black and white.
That book has been called America’s first picture book.
Millions of Cats.
Wanda Gág (1893–1946) wrote and illustrated Millions of Cats (1928) in the fairy tale tradition of her German-Bohemian heritage, and her black and white drawings were reminiscent of 19th century Eastern Europe. She was born in New Ulm, Minnesota, the oldest of seven children of a painter and church decorator Anton and his free-spirit, creative wife Lissi, both of whom died when Wanda was a young woman. She took on the raising of her siblings, with help from “the Grandma Folks” and sporadic interference by social services in the little town. All of the children finished high school, and Wanda moved them to Minneapolis while she attended art schools in the Twin Cities 1913-1917, then won a scholarship to the Art Students League of New York.
All but one of her siblings followed her to New York, where she earned a living as a commercial illustrator until she was acclaimed "one of America’s most promising young graphic artists” in 1926 after a one-woman-show in the Weyhe Gallery. This acclaim led to an editor’s taking an interest in her, asking Gág to illustrate a children’s book, which was Millions of Cats. To escape distractions in the City, she rented a farm in New Jersey, Tumble Timbers (1925-1930), then purchased All Creation, where her brother and youngest sister came to live and work for her. Flavia Gág went on to author and illustrate children’s books as well (Lacy, "Wanda Gág: A Minnesota Childhood," 2019, youtube).
Gág received a 1929 Newbery Honor Book award for Millions of Cats, noted for her “original creative work in the field of books for children.” She also wrote and illustrated The Funny Thing (1929), Snippy and Snappy (1931), The ABC Bunny (1933), Gone is Gone (1935) and Nothing At All (1941), as well as translating and illustrating four books of Grimm’s fairy tales. She was awarded her second Newbery Honor Book for ABC Bunny, and the first edition stated that the illustrations were “printed in lithography on paper made especially for this edition.”
A decade after publication of Millions of Cats, the Caldecott Medal was established for the “most distinguished American Picture Book of the preceding year,” and other books considered distinguished were designated as Honor Books. Gág received two Caldecott Honor Book awards, one for her illustrated translation of Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs (1938) and a second three years later for her last picture book, Nothing At All (1941), the only book she did in color. She was forced to accomplish her red and green illustrations in a laborious process to cut costs during wartime, and she complained about having to use lead pencils on glass under fluorescent lighting.
With Millions of Cats, Gág may be given credit for an increased interest in picture book creation in America by publishers, artists and the public, as witnessed by the outpouring of classics in the years following her first book. Gág’s ten illustrated titles over twenty years established a high standard in America for the integration of art and text in children’s literature. She had pioneered a new format in which scenes were composed across double spreads, and the artwork and text were uniquely intertwined. She mixed up the order of pictures and text and stretched pictures onto more than one page. Virginia Lee Burton (1909-1968) was one to notably use this same approach for composition in her 1943 Caldecott Award winner, The Little House.
Most of Millions of Cats black and white illustrations were confined beneath an arch of clouds in the sky, a canopy of treetops or even a curved ceiling of the cozy little home of the very old man and woman in the story. She favored such arched compositions in subsequent picture books, except for ABC Bunny (1933) in which black and white illustrations were squared off, one to a page, each framed by an identical white margin.
Gág is widely considered a crucial figure in the development of the picture book form, and for fifty decades her ideas paved the way for modern illustrators. Those who have chosen storytelling in black and white often cite her as their inspiration.
In the first half of the 20th century, publishers continued to insist that first time illustrators continue creating in black and white rather than color, usually because they were unknown as money makers and the four-color process was complicated and more expensive. Just a bit of color began showing up in monochromatic picture books as early as the 1930s, when illustrators were first allowed by publishers to incorporate color as accents for certain elements within black and white pictures. Into the 1940s and 1950s, black line drawings began to be imposed over splashes of color or entire backgrounds composed of color. Such books might be called “crossovers,” in that their illustrations are part color and part black and white. As technologies for color reproduction improve, illustrations with various mixes of monochromatic and color continue to this day.
A dilemma was raised for this author of Children’s Classics Revisited about how to proceed with reviews about black and white illustrations when such bits or splashes of color were involved. The quandary was solved when one stops to consider whether the intent of the illustrator appears to be the creation of characters and settings primarily through the black and white drawings. If so, the addition of color very likely has less to do with actual storytelling than it does with aesthetics.
In addition, historical precedent was set for legitimate consideration of such titles today when books from the 20th century were called black and white picture books even when they had bits of color. An example is Mitten (1936) by Clare Turlay Newberry (1903-1970) which has red accents. By the 1960s, even more dramatic examples came from two Caldecott Medalists. First was Always Room for One More (1965) illustrated by Nonny Hogrogian (1932-), with text by Sorche Nic Leodhas, which had background splashes of soft purple—the color of heather, the Scottish national emblem—which were nothing more than aesthetic. The next year was Sam, Bangs and Moonshine (1966) by Evaline Ness (1911-1986), with images colored in by splashes of reddish brown and olive green. The illustrators’ dependence on the drawn line is evident in both books, however, and the settings and characters would easily stand alone if no colors were involved.
Other 20th century titles might be considered “crossovers” combining bold line drawings with heavy use of accent colors (see Appendix A). Chronological lists of both Caldecott Medal and Honor Book recipients may also be instructive to gauge continued popularity of monochromatic illustrations in the 20th century (see Appendix B). When a book is not purely in black and white, a note is made after the entry. Year of publication—rather than year of receiving an award—is cited to facilitate bibliographic searches.
In addition to Wanda Gág and other legendary names in children’s literature in the 20th century, eight warrant attention here because of their significant contributions with black and white illustration throughout long careers —Dorothy Lathrop (1891-1980), Robert Lawson (1892-1957), Clare Turlay Newberry (1903-1970), Lynd Ward (1905-1985), Robert McCloskey (1914-2003), Maurice Sendak (1928-2012), David Macaulay (1946-) and Chris Van Allsburg (1949-). Many picture books by these and others that have black and white illustrations were reissued in later years with colorful covers.
Lathrop illustrated Animals from the Bible (1937), text by Helen Dean Fish, for which Lathrop received the inaugural 1938 Caldecott Medal for her black and white illustrations (cover in color added later). She started illustrating books in 1918, and the first picture book she wrote as well as illustrated was The Fairy Circus (1931), a Newbery Honor Book, with black and white drawings alternating with color illustrations across double page spreads. She returned to all black and white in Who Goes There? (1935), her first book with drawings in lithographic pencil on illustration board. Anne Roberts, in her essay "Dorothy Lathrop's World", discussed the artist’s forty-five-year career: “It's as if she would pick up a pen and become a different artist entirely. Her output was prodigious, even staggering. What makes this all the more impressive is the variety of media in which she worked: pen and ink, oil, watercolor, gouache, colored pencil, graphite, woodcut, wood engraving, lithographic pencil and lithographic crayon. Each medium has its own exacting demand, and she mastered them all” (“Flora, Fauna & Fantasy: The Art of Dorothy Lathrop,” Brandywine River Museum, 2006).
Lawson illustrated almost seventy picture books and novels in black and white during his 35-year career. Before the Caldecott Award was established, he had illustrated in black and white The Story of Ferdinand (1936) by Munro Leaf. He and Boris Artzybasheff (1899-1965) received the first Caldecott Honor Book awards in 1938 for black and white illustrations in Four and Twenty Blackbirds: A Collection of Old Nursery Rhymes (1937), with text by Helen Dean Fish, and for Seven Simeons: a Russian Tale (1937). When Lawson was awarded the Caldecott Medal for They Were Strong and Good (1939), he wryly remarked that perhaps some year no such award should be given, hinting that the 1940 Caldecott Medal Selection Committee might actually be rewarding him for The Story of Ferdinand.
Newberry was author and illustrator of seventeen monochromatic picture books (many of them with splashes of color), all but three of them featuring “the very best cat pictures that have ever been made” (New York Times, 1936). She received Caldecott Honor Book awards for four of her masterful “cat books”—Barkis (1938) was the first—and explained her pen and ink sketches and pastel drawings in Drawing a Cat (1940).
McCloskey was awarded the Caldecott Medal for sepia illustrations in Make Way for Ducklings (1941) and Caldecott Honor Books for blue and white illustrations in Blueberries for Sal (1948) and One Morning in Maine (1952) in black and white. For his third Caldecott Honor Book, Journey Cake, Ho! (1953), with text by Ruth Sawyer, “he created illustrations in several colors for the first time. It was, consequently, his first experience in making the color separations required for the printing process…In Time of Wonder (1957), for which he was awarded his second Caldecott Medal, he was encouraged to illustrate in full color. Though he had wanted to use color earlier, editor May Massee had resisted his suggestions, citing the enormous expense of producing such a book, as well as McCloskey’s inexperience.” (Gary D. Schmidt, Robert McCloskey, 1990). Make Way for Ducklings compared nicely to another monochromatic Caldecott Medal winner that should not be ignored, Mei Li (1938), by Thomas Handforth. Both illustrators were masters at creating textures and contours in black and white.
Ward was not only awarded the Caldecott Medal for his black and white picture book, The Biggest Bear (1952), but he had similarly illustrated The Little Red Lighthouse and the Great Gray Bridge (1942, red accents) written by Hildegarde H. Swift. He created a remarkable 175-page black and white wordless book with seven chapters, The Silver Pony (1973).
Sendak was known for his masterful black and white style in the tradition of mid-19th-century English and German illustrators. Of his seven Caldecott Honor Book awards, four were illustrated in black and white. A Hole is to Dig: A First Book of First Definitions (1952) by Ruth Krauss was “printed on brown-tinted paper and, to enhance its old-fashioned look, Sendak deliberately incorporated a good deal of ink crosshatching into his pen and ink drawings.” For What Can You Do with a Shoe? (1955) by Beatrice Schenk de Regniers, he made highly effective use of a crisp black line, giving an edge to otherwise soft red-and-gray-wash illustrations…The color in his early books had been achieved by the use of separate overlays done on acetate, with the colors selected from available printer’s inks and applied at press time. But for his first book in full color, Charlotte and the White Horse (1955) by Ruth Krauss, he simply painted using whatever colors he chose, and the artwork was reproduced by a sophisticated process which separated the various colors for printing” (Selma G. Lane, The Art of Maurice Sendak, pp. 43, 45, 53). For illustrations in Higglety Pigglety Pop! or There Must Be More to Life (1967), Sendak returned to black and white.
Macaulay spent over twenty years creating black and white picture books that explained architecture, design and engineering in his signature way. The hilarious Motel of The Mysteries (1979) and the beautiful Rome Antics (1997) stand as “stories about architecture” that bracket his career as a black and white artist. Many of his famous titles, such as The Way Things Work series starting in 1988 and Caldecott Honor Books, Cathedral (1973) and Castle (1977), have been colorized in the past ten years. Known for his sense of humor, the illustrator named his Caldecott Medal winner Black and White (1990), even though the picture book has only one double spread that is monochromatic. In Rome Antics, a thin red line swoops in, out and around buildings, indicating the flight path of a bird that guides the tour of a beautiful city the illustrator knows and loves so well.
Van Allsburg started a serious contemporary American revival of black and white storytelling with The Garden of Abdul Gasazi (1979), a Caldecott Honor Book, followed by his Caldecott Medalist Jumanji (1981). Van Allsburg is a consummate draftsman whose extraordinary multiplicity of gray tones conveys ominous moods and eerie subtleties. No discussion of black and white illustration is complete without highlighting his complex plots as well as the sculpted figures in his illustrations. As a matter of fact, he is a sculptor, which was evident to a child who said his pictures looked like “photographs of clay people.” Of the illustrator’s seventeen picture books, eight more were in black and white, such as Ben’s Dream (1982). Of his seven picture books with color illustrations, Polar Express (1985) also received the Caldecott Medal.
Into the 21st century many award-winning picture book illustrators continue to entice youngsters with the subtlety and grace of monochromatic illustrations, even when children are bombarded in their daily lives with resplendent color in print, electronic and digital media. When the illustrators have been asked why they chose black and white to tell stories, they have talked about the boldness, crispness, clarity and simplicity of black on white paper and the effect of chiaroscuro achieved with light and shadow.
Others replied they wanted to reflect a bygone, black and white era. They admired the British and German engravings, woodcuts and lithography of the 18th and 19th centuries. They paid homage to early 20th century American picture books, newspaper cartoons, pulp magazines and comic strips. They liked film noir from the 1930s and 1940s and picture books, they said, are like little movies. They remembered their own black and white TVs at home when they were kids. Some said they grew up drawing with a #2 Ticonderoga, and wielding a pencil was what they know best.
A woodworking friend told of his experience: “Black and white illustrations remind me of the earliest days of my career. I was completely averse to adding any color to the wood I was working with. I just thought that the wood itself and its grain were so beautiful that there was no reason to alter it. As with the grain in wood, a black and white picture is kind of a natural thing that can be subtle, bold, light or dark. Black and white pictures convey much stronger images than ones in color. You have to face these images and starker contrasts in a different way, and a whole different set of emotional responses can be the result. Such an expanded way of thinking and feeling is even greater with children.”
For the very reason the woodworker mentions, the stronger images of black and white silhouettes are recommended in board books for babies and toddlers. Research has shown that babies first see white, black and shades of grey (one of the first colors they see is red). Tana Hoban (1917-2006) created high-contrast silhouettes in concept books, starting with Black on White (1993), as well as two dozen picture books with color photographs.
The artistic medium of still photography, like woodworking, can also excel when it is devoid of color. Architecture, sculpture and movies are other such endeavors that must not rely on color. A potter who fires her pieces in an electric kiln that relies on oxidation (which keeps them colorless) explained, “I loved the way that not using color brought out the lights and shadows and lines.” Some illustrators involve themselves in other artistic pursuits such as these, which certainly adds to an understanding of their preferences for black and white illustration.
Continuing into the 21th century with a list of Caldecott recipients may indicate a strong interest in black and white illustrations (see Appendix B). Highlighted below are two dozen picture books—some Award-winners and other titles equally as distinguished—that have shown remarkable innovation in the use of black and white to tell stories, sometimes with bits and splashes of color.
2000 Ian Falconer (American, 1959-), Author and Illustrator. Olivia, board book, Atheneum, 6.2” x 8.2”, 34 pp
Olivia the little pig is a joy, and she’s also good at lots of things, red in particular—red bits, that is, such as her red dress and radio. However, Falconer has been called a minimalist in his 2001 Caldecott Honor Book, because Olivia is drawn alone in black on white. Reproductions of art by famous painters plus new colors are introduced in each of the seven Olivia books that follow. Olivia by now has a dozen books and spinoffs, and only the first couple were monochromatic or with bits of her favorite color, red, as in the second, Olivia Counts (2002).
2000 Christopher Bing (American, n.d.), Illustrator. Casey at the Bat: A Ballad of the Republic Sung in the Year 1888, written by Ernest Thayer, Chronicle, 32 pp, 9.2”x12.2”
The immortal ballad of the 19th-century baseball star is illustrated to look just like an old scrapbook, with ephemera such as newspaper clippings, photos, baseball cards, tickets and ads, sometimes with bits of color. The illustrator of this 2001 Caldecott Honor Book explained in his artist’s notes: “The black and white illustrations were drawn using pen, ink, and brush on white (uninked) scratch board…The final images were prepared entirely digitally—the illustrations were scanned and then merged with the ancillary images which had been manipulated or even created digitally using Illustrator, QuarleXPress and Photoshop.” Bing also illustrated The Midnight Ride of Paul Revere (2001) by Longfellow and Lincoln Shot: A President’s Life Remembered (2008).
2002 Tony DiTerlizzi (American, 1969-), Illustrator. The Spider and the Fly, written by Mary Howitt, 40 pp, 11”x 10”
DiTerlizzi’s illustrations are gothic, sinister and creepy for Howitt’s Victorian-era poem about the suave spider who entices the poor little fly into his home, even while hovering ghosts of past bug victims try to warn her of impending doom. The black, white and silver illustrations in this 2003 Honor Book have the classy creepiness of film noir, and the humor, whimsy and detail bring to life the slimy, slick spider and the foolish, vain fly as she naively meets her fate. A 10th anniversary edition was released in 2012.
2002 Peter McCarty (American, n.d.), Author and Illustrator. Hondo and Fabian, Henry Holt, 40 pp, 8.5” x 9.3”
In McCarty’s 2003 Caldecott Honor Book, the family dog, Hondo, goes in the car to play on the beach while the cat, Fabian, stays home with the baby and amuses himself unrolling the toilet paper. The warm sepia with gentle touches of soft dark red and blue are captivating, lending to the nostalgic atmosphere. The luminous glow of McCarty’s signature style of drawing with pencil on watercolor paper has been compared to the look of pictures viewed through a scrim, the cloth put over lamps to diffuse light in film and television. McCarty’s sequel, Fabian Escapes, was published in 2007.
2004 Kevin Henkes (American, 1960-), Author and Illustrator. Kitten’s First Full Moon, Greenwillow Books, 40 pp, 10” x 10”
Henkes’ 2005 Caldecott Medal acceptance speech at the ALA Annual Conference (Chicago, June 26, 2005) explains the creation of his Award winner, Kitten’s First Full Moon: “From the start I pictured this book with black and white illustrations, bold sans serif type, a square trim size, and soft, creamy paper. I love to use color—even bright color—in most of my picture books, but for this book color seemed unnecessary. I thought that by keeping everything as simple and spare as possible, a better, tighter, more complete book would result. I liked the idea of having a white moon, a white cat, and a white bowl of milk surrounded by the black night.
“When I draw, I usually use a crow-quill pen, which makes a rather thin line. This time I wanted a much thicker line, and I wanted the line to vary in thickness, so I drew with a brush—a technique I’d never used in any of my other books. This allowed me a freedom I’d not previously experienced while doing finished art. I’d been used to scratching away for hours making small marks. With a brush I could make broad strokes and long continuous lines. I could define shapes with a single motion. (Henkes uses the same broad, continuous outlines—this time to define pastel-colored figures—in his 2018 picture book, A Parade of Elephants.)
“The art was prepared using black gouache for the line and black and gray colored pencils. But the book was printed in four colors on a full-color press. This gave the illustrations a richness and depth they wouldn’t have had if the book had been printed with black ink only. Although the finished art is very dissimilar to hers, I thought of Kitten’s First Full Moon as a sort of tribute to Clare Turlay Newberry…And although she isn’t given a name other than Kitten, I secretly think of my heroine as Clare. I also admire the work of Jean Charlot…And of course, I was thinking of the great Wanda Gág.” (Summer/Fall 2005, Children and Libraries, ALSC)
2005 Matt Tavares (American, 1975-), Author and Illustrator. Mudball, Candlewick, 32 pp. 9.3” x 10.8”
Of seven baseball books by Tavares, Zachary’s Ball (2000), Oliver’s Game (2004) and Mudball (2005) were illustrated in black and white. Tavares says he illustrated in pencil “partly because that was the medium I felt most comfortable with at the time and partly because monochromatic illustrations felt right…There is that quality and detail you can only get from black and white.” The three uplifting stories—Zachary plays as a Red Sox in the old days at Boston’s Fenway Park, Oliver discovers that Grandpa chose to serve in WWII rather than become a baseball player and Andy hits an impossible home run in 1903—meld perfectly with the atmosphere created by black and white nostalgia. See also Chapter 1 for Tavares’ monochromatic illustrations for The Night Before Christmas, which will be released September 2022 as a new edition.
2006 David McLimans (American, n.d.), Author and Illustrator. Gone Wild: An Endangered Animal Alphabet, Walker, 40 pp, 11.1” x 10”
Striking silhouettes of endangered animals as letters of the alphabet result in dramatic abstract art in this 2007 Caldecott Honor Book. The black figures on white glossy paper are stunning designs in themselves. Next to each letter, the entire animal is shown in red, and information about habitat is included. The title is also offered as a board book for young children, but the inventiveness of such a stylized approach to a beloved but somewhat timeworn genre is perhaps most appealing to older children and adults interested in art.
2006 Shaun Tan (Australian, n.d.), Author and Illustrator. The Arrival, Cicada (See Chapter 7)
2007 Brian Selznick (American, 1966-), Author and Illustrator. The Invention of Hugo Cabret (See Chapter 7)
2008 Beth Krommes (American, n.d.), Illustrator. The House in the Night by Susan Marie Swanson, Houghton Mifflin, 40 pp, 7.6” x 10”
Krommes created black and white scratchboard illustrations with a dramatic touch of yellow watercolor in her 2009 Caldecott Award winner about a little girl’s bedtime rituals. Her website includes a synopsis of her process: “The scratchboard itself is a cardboard or hardwood panel with a thin coating of fine, white clay covered by a layer of India ink…I draw by scratching white lines through the black ink surface. The more one scratches, the brighter a picture becomes.”
In her Caldecott Medal acceptance speech at the ALA Annual Conference (Chicago, July 12, 2009) , Krommes also explained, “Ann Rider, my longtime editor at Houghton, knew I had always wanted to do a book in black and white and the text was perfect…all about light and dark…It was Ann's idea from the beginning to add the golden highlights. She had admired this effect in a book called Goodnight, Goodnight by Eve Rice, published in 1980.”
Among Krommes’ favorite picture book illustrations are line drawings by Maurice Sendak for the Little Bear series by Else Holmelund Minarik and Millions of Cats by Wanda Gág. “I have also paid homage to Gág by including her house, Tumble Timbers, within the landscape on the second to last spread (on the bottom right) and to Dr. Seuss's The Cat in the Hat, as we see just a glimpse of Mother's foot coming through the door (on the right in the fifth spread from the end).”
2011 Chris Van Allsburg (American, 1949-), Author and Illustrator. Queen of the Falls, Houghton Mifflin, 40 pp, 8” x 11.5”
Van Allsburg’s signature monochromatic illustrations tell the 1901 true story of a retired charm school instructor named Annie Edson Taylor, the first to go over Niagara Falls in a wooden barrel. The illustrator who is famous for his fantasies and surreal tales said he wanted to do something that was fantastic but not a fantasy. Because of his background as a sculptor, he also wanted Annie to look like a real person, so he used his daughter’s algebra teacher as a model and researched authentic clothes for her to wear. As is his style, the illustrator framed his unnerving pictures with rigid formality, only occasionally breaking outside the frame, and the result has the look of an old photo album.
2011 Cybèle Young (Canadian, ), Author/Illustrator. Ten Birds, Kids Can Press, 32pp, 9.5”x12”
Intricate chiaroscuro pen and ink drawings tell the tale of ten birds inventing ways to cross the river. With such names as “Exceptional” and “Brilliant,” each bird uses its own ingenious, outlandish construction until the tenth bird, “Needs Improvement,” shows them the simplest way of all, ending all the silliness and suspense. As background for her detailed drawings, Young uses pale ivory paper in Ten Birds and pale green paper in Ten Birds Meet a Monster (see Article 15). Young received the Canadian 2011 Governor General’s Award for illustration of Ten Birds.
2011 Lane Smith (American, 1959-), Author and Illustrator. Grandpa Green, Roaring Brook Press, 32 pp, 8.5” x 11.2
Smith was awarded a 2012 Caldecott Honor Book for what could be called a green and white book as well as a black and white one. On the same pages, he shows the green grandeur of Grandpa Green’s topiary garden while simultaneously illustrating in black ink the activities of Grandpa and his grandson. On the copyright page, Smith calls attention to the differences in media he used for the two parts of his illustrations— the black and white “characters” were done in brush and ink while green “foliage” was accomplished with watercolor, oil paint and digital paint.
The delicate black and white images on every page convey the story as the boy follows and helps his great-grandfather in the garden. The exquisitely shaped greenery represents the old man’s life from birth through fourth-grade chicken pox, a world war, marriage, kids and grandkids and the great-grandkid, who is the one picking up after him and narrating the story. What is surely one of the most amusing set of figures in the garden is a group from The Wizard of Oz—Lion, Wicked Witch, Toto and the Tin Woodman. The greenery is accompanied by parts of the trees that support it, exposing a gnarly wooden body for the Witch and an ax handle, neck and stubby nose for the Tin Man. Regardless of the fact that he is literally rooted in place, never to move an inch, the Woodman stands poised to chop away. The boy himself is posed as topiary of Saint George facing the Dragon in a panoramic foldout page. On the single last page, the boy is shown shaping a bust of his Grandpa into a work of topiary art.
Smith included bits of yellow or red to accent romantic details such as a soft flower or a bow ribbon or a heart ¬or even for the violent explosions Grandpa remembers from the war. However, for the text, “Now he’s pretty old,” the illustrator’s double page spread of the boy swinging from a limb of an enormous gnarly old tree is an eloquent symbol of the love and trust between this great-grandkid and his Grandpa Green. After Smith’s illustrations in 1993 Caldecott Honor Book, The Stinky Cheese Man and Other Fairly Stupid Tales (1992), his hues became more and more muted, only occasionally bursting into color as in A House That Once Was (2018) by Julie Fogliano.
2014 Lizi Boyd (American, n.d.), Author and Illustrator. Flashlight, Chronicle Books, 40 pp, 9.5” x 9.5”
In the dark of night on a camping trip, everything in the woods is hidden from view. Only the white of the moon and nearby birch trees stand out against the blackness. However, when a boy turns on his flashlight, investigation of the night reveals all that is really going on. This wordless book features black backgrounds with objects outlined in gray or dark green, and only details of plants and animals caught in the beam of the flashlight are in color.
2014 Jillian Tamaki (American, n.d.), Illustrator. This One Summer, written by Mariko Tamaki, First Second, 320 pp, 6.3” x 8.8”
Some of the most wistful dark blue and white illustrations in the Tamaki sisters’ coming-of-age graphic novel are of Rose’s small vacation community, her chunky little friend Windy dancing her heart out, the girls’ flashlights leading the way across the beach on a dark night, and Windy running across the sun-scorched beach, yelling “The sand is like lava!” Personalities and facial expressions of the two girls, with their pouts, giggles and silliness, are exceptional line drawings in this 2015 Caldecott Honor Book.
2014 Jon Klassen (Canadian, n.d.), Illustrator. Sam and Dave Dig a Hole by Mac Barnett, Candlewick, 40pp, 8.1” x 10.9”
If one reads only Barnett’s text in this 2015 Caldecott Honor Book, the thought might be that not much is going on in the story. However, the author’s wry understatements are exactly what lend so much humor to Klassen’s visuals that accompany the words. The text does not mention a dog, big diamonds or a bone, all of which end up driving the story. In fact, since the audience sees the tale unfold without help from the narration, the title could be considered a near-wordless picture book, with only one sentence at the beginning—“We won’t stop digging until we find something spectacular”—and only one sentence at the end—“That was pretty spectacular.” That is what the whole book is about—two boys having a spectacular experience, even if the experience is not the one they planned for with their shovels and big boots and snacks.
Reliance on contrasting light and dark is dramatically evident in Klassen’s illustrations in dark brown and white. The boys dig a straight shaft into the earth until finally they and the audience are totally underground before Sam and Dave fall asleep in the deep hole they’ve made. The oppressive darkness of the double page spread, with the strong vertical shaft of light shining down on the sleeping boys, is a pivotal scene in the story. When the page is turned to the stark contrast of a blinding white double page, the afterimage of the shaft in the darkness on the previous page remains. But are the boys still underground? They fall with the dog down the center of the page, as if in the shaft, but after a couple of pages, we see that they are home again. No shaft. No hole. If the adventure was just a dream, how can two boys have the same dream?
Other Barnett and Klassen titles are The Wolf, the Duck and the Mouse (2017), The Three Billy Goats Gruff (2022) and the minimalist Shapes Trilogy—Triangle (2017), Square (2018) and Circle (2019). Klassen also won a 2013 Honor Book award for the two collaborators’ Extra Yarn (2012). Klassen has also created his own Hat Trilogy—I Want My Hat Back (2011), 2013 Caldecott Medalist This Is Not My Hat (2012) and We Found a Hat (2016) as well as the monochromatic, five-chapter story The Rock from the Sky (2021), with hilarious bit of red at the end.
2017 Elisha Cooper (American, n.d.), Author and Illustrator. Big Cat, little cat, Roaring Brook Press, 40 pp, 9.3” x 8.8”
Colorful cover and endpapers do not prepare the audience for Cooper’s deceptively simple but sophisticated black and white illustrations in his 2018 Caldecott Honor Book. In a poignant little story about the circle of life, a Big White Cat teaches daily routines to a small black kitten, the little one grows up while the big one grows old and has to go away, and a new little white kitten arrives to learn daily routines now from the Big Black Cat. After Big White Cat is gone, the background changes from white to gray, then changes back again when new white kitten arrives. This touch has a quiet, calming effect for a story with such profound implications, a picture book gem reminiscent of Newberry’s soft black and white “cat books” in the 1930s.
2018 Juana Martinez-Neal (American, n.d.), Author and Illustrator. Alma and How She Got Her Name, Candlewick, 32 pp, 9.4” x 9.8”
In the 2019 Caldecott Honor Book, the father of a little girl named Alma tells stories of her family namesakes while looking at sepia-toned photos in an old album. The use of graphite, colored pencils and print transfers in black, charcoal gray with accents of red and blue on a cream-colored background create a contemporary look for a nostalgic family story. Martinez-Neal also illustrated Fry Bread: A Native American Family Story (2019) by Kevin Noble Maillard.
2018 Brian Selznick (American, 1951-), Author and Illustrator. David Serlin, Co-Author. Baby Monkey, Private Eye, Scholastic Press, 192 pp, 5.5” x 8”
Added to Selznick’s signature black and white pencil drawings are red accents in all the right funny places is this unique blend of picture book, easy reader chapter book and graphic novel. Selznick offers 120 drawings of Baby Monkey as he solves five cases by looking carefully for visual clues, writing notes, eating a snack and putting on his pants. Each single-page drawing faces a simple sentence in large typeface on the opposite page, and the repetition of vocabulary from case to case makes the book perfect for emerging readers. The audience is invited to linger over hidden references in his office among the framed pictures and objects, all of which change according to what case is being investigated. In contrast to such detailed scenes are the uncluttered images of Baby Monkey as he struggles with his pants. Alternating busy illustrations with bold, simple ones paces the story, a dramatic storytelling device that Selznick says he learned from his hero, author/illustrator Remy Charlip: “…the very act of turning the pages plays a pivotal role in telling the story. Each turn reveals something new in a way that builds on the image on the previous page.” A key to Baby Monkey’s office is in the back of the book to help identify all the hidden jokes in the clutter that changes for each case. A humorous Index is also included, so that one can look up such silliness as “Nose, red rubber: p. 119, p. 121.”
2019 Fiona Robinson (British, n.d.), Author and Illustrator. The Bluest of Blues: Anna Atkins and the First Book of Photographs, Harry N. Abrams, 48 pp, 9.4” x 12.4”
Impossible to ignore is the beauty of Robinson’s illustrations in blue and white (with occasional accents in red) to replicate the soft, faded style of cyanotype photographs or “sun prints,” in which objects are placed on heavy chemically-treated watercolor paper in direct sunlight to make bluish prints. This biography is about botanist and photographer Anna Atkins who, in 1843, was the first person to publish a book of photography, and Robinson includes original cyanotypes from Atkins's collection. The author/illustrator’s Medium Note further explains: “The illustrations are montages of pencil drawings, watercolor paintings, vintage fabrics and wallpapers, wood veneers and photographs…I combined the drawn, painted and photographed images together in Adobe Photoshop.”
2019 Henry Cole (American, n.d.), Author and Illustrator. Spot and Dot, Little Simon, 32pp, 11” x 10”
With detailed, cross-hatched black and white illustrations, the reader follows the lost dog Dot and Spot the cat, who is trying to get her friend back home. They go on a wordless cross-town journey, weaving in and out of a market, bakery, library and concert in a park. Along the way, characters and objects appear, disappear, and reappear. In a surprise ending, “home” for both cat and dog was not far away from each other. Cole also created Spot, the Cat (2016); One Little Bag: An Amazing Journey (2020); Nesting (2020); Building (2022).
2019 Isabelle Arsenault (American, n.d.), Illustrator. Just Because, by Mac Barnett, Candlewick, 40 pp, 10.1”x12.1”
Arsenault’s retro mid-20th-century look in black, soft white and deep gray create a bedtime scene in which Barnett’s patient father has creative answers beyond the standard “just because” for his little girl’s bedtime-stalling questions. For each of his fanciful answers, muted colors created with gouche, pencil and watercolor are used for double spreads of such imaginings as flying fish and dinosaurs floating in space. Arsenalt also created Colette’s Lost Pet (2017) and illustrated You Belong Here (2016) by M. H. Clark in her signature style of black, white and gray with accents of yellow, blue or red.
2019 Piet Grobler (South African, n.d.), Illustrator. Playgrounds of Babel, by Jon Arno Lawson, Groundwood, 32 pp., 8.8”x10.2”
Two boys on a playground listen to an old woman tell about the tower of Babel. When one boy can’t understand the foreign language spoken by the storyteller, the other one translates, after which the boys wonder why they themselves are now are able to communicate. An original, often funny sequel is concocted in which two girls—on another playground long ago—learn to communicate through song, which solves the problem to the boys’ satisfaction. The present-day playground scene is rendered in black and white while the stories being told are illustrated in color.
2020 Elise Hurst (Australian), Illustrator. Trying, by Kobi Yamada, Compendium, 48pp, 9”x11”
A sculptor advises a frustrated young artist, showing him his own failed animal statues in the garden. Dramatic pencil and watercolor illustrations are mostly black and white, heavily shaded for a mysterious and ethereal effect as in long-ago remembrances. Bits of color are the greenish moss-covered statues and an orange cat.
2021 Eric Fan (Canadian,-), Author/Illustrator. It Fell from the Sky, Author/Illustrator Terry Fan, Simon & Schuster, 56pp, 10”x10”
Part of the Fan Brothers’ vintage black and white charm is that they painstakingly illustrated in traditional pencil and ballpoint pen and then elegantly finished off their pictures digitally. The result is crisp definitions for fireflies, stinkbugs and spiders in double page spreads full of whimsical details to make the reader linger for a closer look. Limited use of color is for a child’s marble, the strange object to have fallen from the sky into the insects’ garden, a natural world in miniature where dandelion puffs sparkle like jewels. The Fan Brothers also created The Night Gardener (2016) and Ocean Meets Sky (2018), each a tour de force of part-monochromatic and part-color, and in full color The Antlered Ship (2017) by Dashka Slater.
Appendices
Appendix A: 20th century titles that might be considered “crossovers” combining bold line drawings with heavy use of accent colors (usually only one) are Harold and Purple Crayon (1955, Harold’s crayon) by Crockett Johnson (1906-1975), Crictor (1958, snake Crictor himself) illustrated by Tomi Ungerer (1931-2019), Eloise (1959) illustrated (lots of red, lots and lots) by Hilary Knight (1926-) and Annie and the Old One (1971) by Miska Miles, (dusty red and gold landscape) illustrated by Peter Parnall (1936-). Marie Hall Ets (1895-1984) wrote and illustrated with black and white drawings her 1956 Honor Book, Play with Me (1955, gold background) and Gilberto and the Wind (1963, dark brown background). Not to be ignored are Caldecott Medal-winning “crossovers” in which black and white is used equally as much as color, such as Madeline’s Rescue (1951) by Ludwig Bemelmans (1998-1962), Nine Days to Christmas (1959) illustrated by Marie Hall Ets, Once a Mouse (1961) by Marcia Brown (1918-2015) and Everybody Needs a Rock (1974) illustrated by Peter Parnall. These books are all included here because of masterful uses of the drawn line with color, a popular style in the mid-20th-century.
Appendix B: A note is made below when a Caldecott is not purely in black and white. Year of publication is cited to facilitate bibliographic searches.
20th Century Caldecott Medal winners with monochromatic illustrations:
1937 Animals of the Bible, A Picture Book , illustrated by Dorothy P. Lathrop; text selected by Helen Dean Fish
1938 Mei Li by Thomas Handforth
1940 They Were Strong and Good by Robert Lawson
1941 Make Way for Ducklings by Robert McCloskey (Note: sepia toned)
1952 The Biggest Bear by Lynd Ward
1965 Always Room for One More, illustrated by Nonny Hogrogian; text by Sorche Nic Leodhas (Note: splash of purple)
1966 Sam, Bangs & Moonshine by Evaline Ness (Note: brown accent)
1981 Jumanji by Chris Van Allsburg
More than one Caldecott Honor Book may be awarded each year. Reviewing a larger number of titles is additionally instructive to gauge the contribution of black and white illustrations to children’s literature. Out of two hundred total titles, Illustrators of thirty-four memorable picture books with monochromatic or crossover illustrations have been Caldecott Honor Books from 1937 to 1989. Some favorite old titles may be missing from this list, due to the fact that many Honor Books are no longer in print for study.
20th Century Caldecott Honor Books with monochromatic illustrations:
1937 Four and Twenty Blackbirds, illustrated by Robert Lawson; text compiled by Helen Dean Fish
1938 Andy and the Lion by James Daugherty (Note: splash of rusty red)
1938 Barkis by Clare Turlay Newberry (Note: brown accents)
1938 Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs by Wanda Gág
1940 April's Kittens by Clare Turlay Newberry (Note: reddish accent)
1942 Dash and Dart by Mary & Conrad Buff (Note: sepia)
1942 Marshmallow by Clare Turlay Newberry (Note: pink accent)
1944 In the Forest by Marie Hall Ets
1947 Stone Soup by Marcia Brown (Note: sepia and red accent)
1947 Song of Robin Hood, illustrated by Virginia Lee Burton; text edited by Anne Malcolmson
1948 Blueberries for Sal by Robert McCloskey
1949 The Happy Day illustrated by Marc Simont; text by Ruth Krauss
1952 A Hole is to Dig: A First Book of First Definitions, illustrated by Maurice Sendak; text by Ruth Krauss
1953 A Very Special House, illustrated by Maurice Sendak; text by Ruth Krauss (Note: yellow paper and blue accent)
1956 Mister Penny’s Race Horse by Marie Hall Ets
1958 What Do You Say, Dear?, illustrated by Maurice Sendak; text by Sesyle Joslin (Note: blue accent)
1961 Little Bear's Visit, illustrated by Maurice Sendak; text by Else H. Minarik
1962 The Sun is a Golden Earring, illustrated by Bernarda Bryson; text by Natalia M. Belting (Note: yellow accent)
1963 All in the Morning Early, illustrated by Evaline Ness; text by Sorche Nic Leodhas
1964 A Pocketful of Cricket, illustrated by Evaline Ness; text by Rebecca Caudill (Note: splashes of rusty brown, red accent)
1965 Tom Tit Tot by Evaline Ness (Note: green accent)
1965 Just Me by Marie Hall Ets
1971 Hildilid’s Night, illustrated by Arnold Lobel; text by Cheli Duran Ryan (Note: yellow accent)
1971 Moja Means One: Swahili Counting Book, illustrated by Tom Feelings; text by Muriel Feelings
1973 Cathedral by David Macaulay
1974 Jambo Means Hello: Swahili Alphabet Book, illustrated by Tom Feelings; text by Muriel Feelings
1975 The Desert Is Theirs, illustrated by Peter Parnall; text by Byrd Baylor
1976 Fish for Supper by M. B. Goffstein
1976 Hawk, I’m Your Brother, illustrated by Peter Parnall; text by Byrd Baylor
1977 Castle by David Macaulay
1979 Ben’s Trumpet by Rachel Isadora
1979 The Garden of Abdul Gasazi by Chris Van Allsburg
1984 The Story of Jumping Mouse: A Native American Legend by John Steptoe
1989 Bill Peet: An Autobiography by Bill Peet
Impossible to resist for lovers of black and white picture books are other titles like Choo Choo: The Story of a Little Engine Who Ran Away (1937) by Virginia Lee Burton, Flip (1941) by Wesley Dennis, The Giving Tree (1964) by Shel Silverstein, Bea and Mr. Jones (1982) by Amy Schwartz, Round Trip (1983) by Ann Jonas, Max (1984) by Rachel Isadora, CDB! (1968) and CDC? (1984) by William Steig.
Appendix C: A note is made below when a book is not purely in black and white. Year of publication is cited to facilitate bibliographic searches.
21st Century Caldecott Medal winners with monochromatic illustrations:
2004 Kitten’s First Full Moon by Kevin Henkes
2007 The Invention of Hugo Cabret by Brian Selznick
2008 The House in the Night, illustrated by Beth Krommes; written by Susan Marie Swanson (Note: accents in yellow); Before Morning (2016) written by Joyce Sidman
21st Century Caldecott Honor Books with monochromatic illustrations:
2000 Olivia by Ian Falconer (Note: accents in red)
2000 Casey at the Bat, illustrated by Christopher Bing, written by Ernest Thayer (Note: accents in red, blue and sepia)
2002 Hondo and Fabian by Peter McCarty (Note: sepia, splashes of dark red and blue)
2002 The Spider and the Fly, illustrated by Tony DiTerlizzi, written by Mary Howitt
2006 Gone Wild: An Endangered Animal Alphabet by David McLimans
2011 Grandpa Green by Lane Smith (Note: half done in green; accents in red and yellow)
2014 This One Summer, illustrated by Jillian Tamaki; text by Mariko Tamaki (Note: blue tint)
2014 Sam and Dave Dig a Hole, illustrated by Jon Klassen; written by Mac Barnett
2017 Big Cat, little cat, illustrated and written by Elisha Cooper
2018 Alma and How She Got Her Name by Juana Martinez-Neal
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