Ezra Jack Keats

Long before multicultural characters and themes were fashionable, Ezra Jack Keats crossed social boundaries by being the first American picture-book maker to give the urban child a central place in childrenis literature. In Ezra Jack Keats: Artist and Picture-Book Maker author Brian Alderson gives an account of the emergence and significance of Keatsi books within the context of his life. Alderson shows how Keatsi early ambitions were all towards fine art and were spurred on by his success as a schoolboy painter. But his career was always under threat from the depression, from the distractions of war service, and from all the financial difficulties that are the regular lot of practicing artists. Despite a spell of study in Paris, Keats eventually gravitated into commercial art and thennto his own surprisendiscovered that he was a childrenis book illustrator. In describing this career, and in analyzing the great picture books of Keatsi maturity, Brian Alderson has drawn upon recollections of those who knew him and upon the large archive of his works held at the de Grummond Collection of the University of Southern Mississippi. This has allowed an insight not only into Keatsi character, but also into his working life: everything from his obsessive contract negotiations to his struggles in perfecting both his books and the way in which they were presented to the public. In its mixture of sadness and joy, Keatsi life brought him very close to the children for whom he nas an ex-kid nhad such affinity. This book is the fourth in a Pelican series featuring Americais greatest childrenis illustrators and authors including Jessie Willcox Smith, Johnny Gruelle, and Kate Greenaway. Brian Alderson is an international authority in the field of childrenis literature. He has written, edited, and translated stories for children; he has organized exhibitions in Britain and the U.S. on aspects of the subject; and as childrenis books reviewer of The Times of London, he has the continuing experience of reading and reviewing contemporary childrenis books. For more than twenty years he lectured in childrenis literature at what is now the University of North London, where he also organized courses for the British Studies program of the University of Southern Mississippi.