Here comes the freight train! In this new sturdy sliding
board book, Caldecott Award winner Donald Crew takes children right
on board as they slide open the doors to see what''s inside each
train car.
關於作者:
Donald Crews is the renowned creator of two Caldecott Honor
books, Freight Train and Truck. Among his other
enormously popular books are such favorites as Night at the
Fair, Sail Away, Bigmama''s, Shortcut, and
School Bus. He and his wife, Ann Jonas, live in New York''s
Hudson River Valley.
Donald Crews grew up in Newark, New Jersey, and says that all
through his childhood the members of his family were always doing
something with their hands. He was always drawing pictures. Now, in
the old farmhouse where he lives with his wife, the noted author
and illustrator Ann Jonas, Donald Crews is still drawing
pictures.
After graduating from New York City''s Cooper Union, Mr. Crews
spent three years working as a designer. He was assistant art
director of Dance magazine, on the staff of a small design studio,
and did freelance work as a book-jacket designer. But in 1962 he
was inducted into the Army, and for a time his artistic pursuits
were set aside. As the end of his eighteen-month military stint in
Germany approached, he assigned himself to the task of writing and
illustrating a children''s book to add to his portfolio. The result
was the brilliant concept book We Read: A to Z Harper
Row, 1967, which, nearly twenty years later, was reissued by
Greenwillow Books. Ten Black Dots, a counting book, came
next, and then several books for which he did illustrations only.
But the turning point came in 1978, when Greenwillow published
Freight Train, a picture book inspired by Mr. Crews''s
childhood train trips from Newark to visit his grandmother in
Florida. It was named a Caldecott Honor Book. Since then, Mr. Crews
has created several other highly acclaimed picture books including
Truck, a 1981 Calclecott Honor Book, all painted in the
flat, clean colors and bright, unambiguous shapes that are the
hallmarks of his striking graphics.
When Donald Crews is asked why he focuses on picture books, he
frequently answers, "Why not?" All the tools necessary for the
creation of any piece of art are also elements in a successful
picture book. Mr. Crews chooses a subject, explores ways to develop
the subject visually, writes a story, then produces his finished
illustrations. And the final audience, the children, tell him that
they like what he does. Why not, indeed!