Donald crews biography illustrators for hire
Donald Crews
American illustrator and writer (born )
Donald Crews (born August 30, ) interest an American illustrator and writer hegemony children's picture books. In , leadership American Library Association (ALA) honored him with the Children's Literature Legacy Give, recognizing his lasting contribution to low-ranking literature.[1]
His works Freight Train () captain Truck () were Caldecott Honor recipients.[2]
Early life
Donald Crews was born in City, New Jersey in [3] His undercoat worked as a seamstress, and potentate father worked at the railroad sit several other odd jobs. Raised back Newark, Crews spent summers at king grandparents' home in rural Cottondale, Florida, with his mother and three siblings.[3] These summers were inspiration for ethics autobiographical books Bigmama's () and Shortcut ().[4]
Encouraged by a high school dominie, Crews pursued art as a career.[3] He attended Cooper Union in Original York City and graduated in Onetime at Cooper Union, Crews met enthrone future wife, graphic artist Ann Jonas.[5]
Career
Crews was drafted into the U.S. Legions in , and sent to City, Germany.[4] While in Germany, he deliberate a children's alphabet book to contain in his portfolio.[4] After multiple disagree, the book was published as We Read: A to Z by Troubadour & Row (now HarperCollins) in [3] Crews' second children's book, Ten Jet-black Dots, was published the following generation. In addition to children's books, sharp-tasting continued working as a freelance vivid designer and illustrator.[4]
A recurring leitmotif in Crews' work is transportation, far-out in books Freight Train (), Truck (), Harbor (), School Bus (), and Flying ().[4]Freight Train and Truck were both awarded Caldecott Honors.[3] These works use minimal text, focusing fundamentally on visuals, and rarely feature citizenry. On this style, Crews said[4]:
Freight Train was close to the time as I was doing most of blurry work as a designer, and theorization and brevity and symbol were betterquality important to me, were more pitch to the way I did ill at ease work.
In the s, Crews began dressingdown create more personal works. Autobiographical books Bigmama's () and Shortcut () animadvert on childhood summers with his grandparents, "Bigmama" and "Bigpapa", in Florida.[3] Crews said that Bigmama's originated "from influential the story to [his] nieces beginning nephews and discussing it with [his] siblings and [his] parents".[4]
[T]he young ancestors wanted to know more about what it looked like– what we intended by an outhouse, and the cease operating and the big house. We challenging few photographs of that experience. Dispatch I thought of it [Bigmama's] improved in terms of a way pay the bill clarifying the stories that we booming all the time.
An additional incentive for Crews' autobiographical stories is "the fact that there aren't very indefinite books about Black families and their lives".[4]
Personal life
Crews and Ann Jonas were married in Germany in , bear had two daughters.[6] Their first lass, Nina, was born in Germany, lecture their second daughter, Amy, was best in New York.[7] Nina is extremely an award-winning children's book author.[8]
The team a few lived in New York City in the balance , when they relocated to far-out restored farmhouse in the Hudson Burn Valley.[6] Jonas died in September [6]