The Reading Child Inside This Writer

Abstract

-i4. ..- --. . -. -. COVER FEATURE VERA B. WILLIAMS Winner of the 2009 NSK Neustadt Prizefor Children'sLiterature Vera B.Williamswas born in 1927 inCaliforniaand grew up inNew YorkCity, where she danced, acted, and painted at the BronxHouse, a localcommunitycenter.She has been an eager artistsince the age of nine and studiedgraphic arts at BlackMountain College inNorthCarolina. Inaddition to raisingthreechildren,over the yearsWilliams also helped found an experimental communityand, lateron, a school; cooked and baked at a school in Ontario,Canada; was busy inthe anti-nuclear,peace, and feminist movements, providingmany post ers and graphics, including illustrations for Grace Paley's Long Walks and Intimate Talks (1991),published by the FeministPress.She hiked,camped, and canoed down a 500-mile stretch of theYukon River, which ledto her book ThreeDays on a Riverina RedCanoe. Since 1975, Williams haswrittenand/or illustrated sixteenbooks thathave receivednumerous honors?including theCaldecott, BostonGlobe-Horn Book, and CharlotteZolotow awards?and the 2006 ReginaMedal of theCatholic Library Association. Herwork has been included in lists of best illustrated books chosen by theNew YorkTimes and School Library Journal. Almost all of her books have been published byGreenwillow,an imprint ofHarperCollins. Williamswas nominated fortheHans Christian Andersen Illustrator Award in2004, and the2009 NSK Prize jury recognized Scooter (1993) as an outstanding example of herwork, among hermany other achievements. The nine-member jurythatchoseWilliams fortheNSK Prize included JoniRichardsBodart,KarleenBradford, BeverleyNaidoo, Susan Patron,EricRohmann,Judith Saltman,GarySchmidt, IsabelSchon, and VirginiaEuwer Wolff. VirginiaEuwerWolff, who nominatedWilliams forthe NSK award, calls her "one of our national treasures:an innovativeartist,cannymind, and compassionate spirit whose heart is given to the celebration of people making do." Williams'smost recentbook, A Chair for Always (2009), continues the storyof her popular character Rosa,who firstappeared inA Chair for My Mother (1982). InherBooklistreviewofAChairfor Always, IleneCooper praised thebook by saying,"In both artand text, Williams presentsa just-right Rosa,who captures the intensity childrencan feelabout what's importantintheir lives." Importantin Williams's life currently are herfivegrandchildren, writingpoems, visitingschools,and the discoveries ofgrowingolder. March-April 20101 51 NSK2009 The Reading Child Inside This Writer Vera?.Williams When VeraB.Williamscame tothe University ofOklahoma in October2009, shespokefondly about many of the characters in the fairy tales she heard recited toher as a child?including Baba Yaga, LittleDumling, and Maryushka in "The Crystal Apple" Hearing those tales, she said, "I alwayshad a desiretosee the wholeworld" Inthefollowing essaywritten especiallyforthisissue ofWLT, she reflectson themany voices and visions of theworld that have inspired her work. WhenIwas very young (also small for my age), I would be gathered into my mother's or father's lap and read to or sing-songed to, in English by my mother but often in Russian or Hebrew by my father. Sometimes I lay there in a blissful half-sleep, lulled by the rhythms of these languages. Other times Iwould wriggle down and away; "Mazik (mischievous one, Little Devil), can't you sit still for five minutes?" It was my nature to love words, but I also believed in getting about the business of actual adventure just as avidly as I believed in fairy-tale characters such as theBaba Yaga looking out the window ofher crooked littlehouse set on chicken feet. I learned poems by heart and thus took them intomy heart. They accompanied me as I restlessly explored each new neighborhood we moved to?marking library, park, and the nearest bus stop?to make itmine. My father was passionate about history.My sister and Iwalked with him all over New York City. We paused on bridges watching the tug boats while he recounted events such as theGreat Triangle Shirtwaist Fire. He carried a Modern Library Palgrave's Golden Treasury of poetry on these walks. I still recollect his sonorous bass booming out: One more Unfortunate, Weary of breath, Rashly importunate, Gone toher death! Itwas from"The Bridge of Sighs," by Thom as Hood, about a homeless, dishonored young woman drowrjing herself in the Thames. Even my mother, staunch socialist and realist herself, questioned its fitness forus kids. I don't recollect an illustration,but I plainly "saw" her hair in the water. I sought all books with illustrations. I stroked the shiny color plates. If we could hold up to the light those old Burgess animal books from the...