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From: Norma Jean Sawicki <nsawicki>
Date: Sat, 22 Aug 2009 01:20:13 -0400
August 22, 2009/The New York TImes Karla Kuskin, Creator of Witty Children?s Books, Dies at 77
By MARGALIT FOX Karla Kuskin, a noted children?s author and illustrator whose work combined sly wit and propulsive vitality with deep thoughtfulness about the essential natures of people, animals and things, died on Thursday at her home in Seattle. She was 77.
The cause was cortical basal ganglionic degeneration, a neurological disorder, her son, Nicholas Kuskin, said. A longtime Brooklyn resident, Ms. Kuskin had lived in Seattle in recent years.
The author or illustrator ? often both at once ? of more than 50 books for young people, Ms. Kuskin was known in particular for the volumes of rhymed verse she wrote and illustrated. They include ?In the Middle of the Trees? (Harper, 1958);
?ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZ? (Harper & Row, 1963); ?The Rose on My Cake? (Harper & Row, 1964); and ?Soap Soup and Other Verses? (HarperCollins, 1992).
Ideal for reading aloud, Ms. Kuskin?s poems are known for their stealthy humor, deceptive simplicity and unforced though carefully worked-out rhymes. The listener is buoyed along on a flowing metrical current, as in this verse, from her collection ?Near the Window Tree? (Harper & Row, 1975):
When a cat is asleep
There is nothing asleep
That is quite so asleep
As a cat.
She has finished with darting,
Careening and leaping
Now even the soft air around her is sleeping.
Throughout her work, Ms. Kuskin was an ardent sensualist. In her hands the inner lives of people, animals and even household objects are suffused with feeling. In ?City Dog? (Clarion, 1994), which she wrote and illustrated, an urban dog revels in pastoral sights and smells; ?Traces? (Front Street, 2008), with text by the distinguished writer Paula Fox, centers on the fleeting hints all around us, like tracks in the sand and vapor trails in the sky, that others have passed this way before.
As a writer, Ms. Kuskin worked with some of the country?s best-known artists. Among her most widely praised books are two she did with the noted illustrator Marc Simont, ?The Philharmonic Gets Dressed? (1982) and ?The Dallas Titans Get Ready for Bed? (1986), both published by Harper & Row.
In both books Ms. Kuskin describes in spare, lyrical prose things that happen when we are not around to see them. In the first, members of a symphony orchestra prepare to go to work. In the second, football players divest themselves postgame of layer upon layer and then, looking ?like small wet whales,? shower.
Ms. Kuskin also ?collaborated? with the American painter Milton Avery. Mr. Avery, who died in 1965, left behind a series of enigmatic paintings he had done to illustrate a children?s story by a friend, the writer H. R. Hays. Deemed too expensive to produce, the project was abandoned, and Mr. Hays?s original text was lost.
In her 1994 book ?Paul? (HarperCollins), Ms. Kuskin linked Mr. Avery?s strange, haunting images ? which include a flying pig, a singing cat and a fish soaring through the night sky ? with a new narrative of her own chronicling a boy?s magical journey.
Karla Seidman was born in Manhattan on July 17, 1932, and reared mostly in Greenwich Village. She attended Antioch College before transferring to Yale, from which she received a bachelor of fine arts degree in 1955. Her first book, ?Roar and More? (Harper, 1956), was born of her senior graphic-arts project at Yale, for which she had to design and print a book on a small press.
Ms. Kuskin?s first marriage, to Charles M. Kuskin, ended in divorce; her second husband, William L. Bell, died in 2006. She is survived by two children from her first marriage, Nicholas, of Pelham, N.Y., and Julia Kuskin of Seattle; and three grandchildren.
Her other books include ?Jerusalem, Shining Still? (Harper & Row, 1987; illustrated by David Frampton); ?The Upstairs Cat? (Clarion, 1997; illustrated by Howard Fine), a verse parable about a long- running feline border dispute that emphasizes the futility of war; and ?Moon, Have You Met My Mother? The Collected Poems of Karla Kuskin? (Laura Geringer, 2003; illustrated by Sergio Ruzzier). Ms. Kuskin also wrote widely about children?s literature and was a frequent contributor on the subject to The New York Times Book Review.
Ms. Kuskin thought deeply for decades about the act of making poetry, and some of her poems were wry commentaries on the poetic process itself. They were couched in ways young readers were sure to understand, as in this untitled verse from ?Near the Window Tree?:
Write about a radish
Too many people write about the moon.
The night is black
The stars are small and high
The clock unwinds its ever-ticking tune
Hills gleam dimly
Distant nighthawks cry.
A radish rises in the waiting sky.
Received on Sat 22 Aug 2009 12:20:13 AM CDT
Date: Sat, 22 Aug 2009 01:20:13 -0400
August 22, 2009/The New York TImes Karla Kuskin, Creator of Witty Children?s Books, Dies at 77
By MARGALIT FOX Karla Kuskin, a noted children?s author and illustrator whose work combined sly wit and propulsive vitality with deep thoughtfulness about the essential natures of people, animals and things, died on Thursday at her home in Seattle. She was 77.
The cause was cortical basal ganglionic degeneration, a neurological disorder, her son, Nicholas Kuskin, said. A longtime Brooklyn resident, Ms. Kuskin had lived in Seattle in recent years.
The author or illustrator ? often both at once ? of more than 50 books for young people, Ms. Kuskin was known in particular for the volumes of rhymed verse she wrote and illustrated. They include ?In the Middle of the Trees? (Harper, 1958);
?ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZ? (Harper & Row, 1963); ?The Rose on My Cake? (Harper & Row, 1964); and ?Soap Soup and Other Verses? (HarperCollins, 1992).
Ideal for reading aloud, Ms. Kuskin?s poems are known for their stealthy humor, deceptive simplicity and unforced though carefully worked-out rhymes. The listener is buoyed along on a flowing metrical current, as in this verse, from her collection ?Near the Window Tree? (Harper & Row, 1975):
When a cat is asleep
There is nothing asleep
That is quite so asleep
As a cat.
She has finished with darting,
Careening and leaping
Now even the soft air around her is sleeping.
Throughout her work, Ms. Kuskin was an ardent sensualist. In her hands the inner lives of people, animals and even household objects are suffused with feeling. In ?City Dog? (Clarion, 1994), which she wrote and illustrated, an urban dog revels in pastoral sights and smells; ?Traces? (Front Street, 2008), with text by the distinguished writer Paula Fox, centers on the fleeting hints all around us, like tracks in the sand and vapor trails in the sky, that others have passed this way before.
As a writer, Ms. Kuskin worked with some of the country?s best-known artists. Among her most widely praised books are two she did with the noted illustrator Marc Simont, ?The Philharmonic Gets Dressed? (1982) and ?The Dallas Titans Get Ready for Bed? (1986), both published by Harper & Row.
In both books Ms. Kuskin describes in spare, lyrical prose things that happen when we are not around to see them. In the first, members of a symphony orchestra prepare to go to work. In the second, football players divest themselves postgame of layer upon layer and then, looking ?like small wet whales,? shower.
Ms. Kuskin also ?collaborated? with the American painter Milton Avery. Mr. Avery, who died in 1965, left behind a series of enigmatic paintings he had done to illustrate a children?s story by a friend, the writer H. R. Hays. Deemed too expensive to produce, the project was abandoned, and Mr. Hays?s original text was lost.
In her 1994 book ?Paul? (HarperCollins), Ms. Kuskin linked Mr. Avery?s strange, haunting images ? which include a flying pig, a singing cat and a fish soaring through the night sky ? with a new narrative of her own chronicling a boy?s magical journey.
Karla Seidman was born in Manhattan on July 17, 1932, and reared mostly in Greenwich Village. She attended Antioch College before transferring to Yale, from which she received a bachelor of fine arts degree in 1955. Her first book, ?Roar and More? (Harper, 1956), was born of her senior graphic-arts project at Yale, for which she had to design and print a book on a small press.
Ms. Kuskin?s first marriage, to Charles M. Kuskin, ended in divorce; her second husband, William L. Bell, died in 2006. She is survived by two children from her first marriage, Nicholas, of Pelham, N.Y., and Julia Kuskin of Seattle; and three grandchildren.
Her other books include ?Jerusalem, Shining Still? (Harper & Row, 1987; illustrated by David Frampton); ?The Upstairs Cat? (Clarion, 1997; illustrated by Howard Fine), a verse parable about a long- running feline border dispute that emphasizes the futility of war; and ?Moon, Have You Met My Mother? The Collected Poems of Karla Kuskin? (Laura Geringer, 2003; illustrated by Sergio Ruzzier). Ms. Kuskin also wrote widely about children?s literature and was a frequent contributor on the subject to The New York Times Book Review.
Ms. Kuskin thought deeply for decades about the act of making poetry, and some of her poems were wry commentaries on the poetic process itself. They were couched in ways young readers were sure to understand, as in this untitled verse from ?Near the Window Tree?:
Write about a radish
Too many people write about the moon.
The night is black
The stars are small and high
The clock unwinds its ever-ticking tune
Hills gleam dimly
Distant nighthawks cry.
A radish rises in the waiting sky.
Received on Sat 22 Aug 2009 12:20:13 AM CDT
