Barbara Cooney
Encyclopedia
Barbara Cooney was an American children's author
and illustrator
of more than 200 books and double Caldecott Medal
ist. She has written books for six decades. Her books have been translated into 10 languages.
in Brooklyn, New York, to Russell Schenck Cooney (a stockbroker) and Mae Evelyn Bossert (a painter). She had a twin brother and two younger brothers. She attended Buckley Country Day School
and later Boarding School
.
She later graduated from Smith College
with a history degree, and her first book illustrated, Ake and His World
, by the Swedish poet Bertil Malmberg
, was published a year after graduation. During World War II
, she served in the Women’s Army Corps. Soon after her service, she met and married Guy Murchie
(Jr), in 1944 and had two children (Gretel and Barnaby.) She later divorced, and remarried Charles Talbot Porter in July 1949 and had two more children (Charles and Phoebe.)
Ten years later, she won her first Caldecott for Chanticleer and the Fox
, a book that she illustrated and adapted the text from Chaucer. Between then and when she picked the other Caldecott in 1980 for Ox-Cart Man
(written by Donald Hall
), she traveled a lot, picking up ideas to draw and, occasionally, write. In 1982 she won the National Book Award
for Miss Rumphius
. In 1996, Maine Governor Angus King
honored Miss Cooney by proclaiming the day "Barbara Cooney Day". Her last book, Basket Moon
, was published six months before her 10 March 2000 death at a house that her son built for her in Damariscotta, Maine
.
Portions of her original artwork are being displayed at Bowdoin College
.
, and most of her stories that she chose to illustrate were folk stories. While many of her books were in black and white, her "heart and soul are in color".
Author
An author is broadly defined as "the person who originates or gives existence to anything" and that authorship determines responsibility for what is created. Narrowly defined, an author is the originator of any written work.-Legal significance:...
and illustrator
Illustrator
An Illustrator is a narrative artist who specializes in enhancing writing by providing a visual representation that corresponds to the content of the associated text...
of more than 200 books and double Caldecott Medal
Caldecott Medal
The Caldecott Medal is awarded annually by the Association for Library Service to Children , a division of the American Library Association, to the artist of the most distinguished American picture book for children published that year. The award was named in honor of nineteenth-century English...
ist. She has written books for six decades. Her books have been translated into 10 languages.
Life
Cooney was born on 6 August 1917 in Room 1127 of the Hotel BossertHotel Bossert
Hotel Bossert was once known as "the Waldorf-Astoria of Brooklyn". It was the site of the celebration of the Brooklyn Dodgers' only World Series championship.-Early history:...
in Brooklyn, New York, to Russell Schenck Cooney (a stockbroker) and Mae Evelyn Bossert (a painter). She had a twin brother and two younger brothers. She attended Buckley Country Day School
Buckley Country Day School
Buckley Country Day School is an independent, coeducational day school providing elementary education to 330 students in grades toddler through eight in Roslyn, New York. Buckley was founded in 1923 and opened the doors of its first building in Great Neck to a class of twenty-three children...
and later Boarding School
Boarding school
A boarding school is a school where some or all pupils study and live during the school year with their fellow students and possibly teachers and/or administrators. The word 'boarding' is used in the sense of "bed and board," i.e., lodging and meals...
.
She later graduated from Smith College
Smith College
Smith College is a private, independent women's liberal arts college located in Northampton, Massachusetts. It is the largest member of the Seven Sisters...
with a history degree, and her first book illustrated, Ake and His World
Ake and His World
Ake and His World is a children's fiction book by Swedish poet Bertil Malmberg, published in 1924, and was also the first book by Barbara Cooney, who was to later win the Caldecott Medal twice, for both Chanticleer and the Fox and Ox-Cart Man. It was adapted to film in 1984, starring Allan Edwall....
, by the Swedish poet Bertil Malmberg
Bertil Malmberg
Bertil Frans Harald Malmberg was a Swedish author, poet, and actor. He was born in Härnösand to Teodor Malmberg and Hanna Roman...
, was published a year after graduation. During World War II
World War II
World War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...
, she served in the Women’s Army Corps. Soon after her service, she met and married Guy Murchie
Guy Murchie
Guy Murchie , the son of Ethel A. and Guy Murchie Sr., was a Chicago Tribune photographer, staff artist and reporter, who had served as a war correspondent in England and Iceland from 1940 to 1942. He was briefly married to Barbara Cooney , with whom he shared two children...
(Jr), in 1944 and had two children (Gretel and Barnaby.) She later divorced, and remarried Charles Talbot Porter in July 1949 and had two more children (Charles and Phoebe.)
Ten years later, she won her first Caldecott for Chanticleer and the Fox
Chanticleer and the Fox (book)
In the children's book Chanticleer and the Fox, Barbara Cooney adapted and illustrated the story of Chanticleer and the Fox as told in The Nun's Priest's Tale in Chaucer's Canterbury Tales, translated by Robert Mayer Lumiansky. Published by Crowell in 1958, it was the recipient of the Caldecott...
, a book that she illustrated and adapted the text from Chaucer. Between then and when she picked the other Caldecott in 1980 for Ox-Cart Man
Ox-Cart Man
Ox-Cart Man is the title of a 1979 book written by Donald Hall and illustrated by Barbara Cooney. It won the 1980 Caldecott Medal. The book deals with an 18th century farming family that uses an ox-cart to take their goods to market, where they make the money to buy the things they need.Ox-Cart Man...
(written by Donald Hall
Donald Hall
Donald Hall is an American poet. He was appointed Poet Laureate Consultant in Poetry to the Library of Congress in 2006.-Personal life:...
), she traveled a lot, picking up ideas to draw and, occasionally, write. In 1982 she won the National Book Award
National Book Award
The National Book Awards are a set of American literary awards. Started in 1950, the Awards are presented annually to American authors for literature published in the current year. In 1989 the National Book Foundation, a nonprofit organization which now oversees and manages the National Book...
for Miss Rumphius
Miss Rumphius
Miss Rumphius is a children’s fiction book by Barbara Cooney, published in 1982. The book follows the life story of Miss Alice Rumphius, a woman who sought a way to make the world more beautiful, and who found it in planting lupins in the wild....
. In 1996, Maine Governor Angus King
Angus King
Angus S. King, Jr. served two terms as the 72nd Governor of Maine from 1995 to 2003. Since 2004, King has been a distinguished lecturer at Bowdoin College teaching a course called "Leaders and Leadership"; in the fall of 2009, he also taught a similar course at Bates College...
honored Miss Cooney by proclaiming the day "Barbara Cooney Day". Her last book, Basket Moon
Basket Moon
Basket Moon is the title of a 1999 children's book by Mary Lyn Ray. It was illustrator Barbara Cooney's last book, published six months before she died. The book details a 19th-century boy who makes baskets and sells them in town, similar to Cooney's earlier book, Ox-Cart Man. One magazine praised...
, was published six months before her 10 March 2000 death at a house that her son built for her in Damariscotta, Maine
Damariscotta, Maine
Damariscotta is a town in Lincoln County, Maine, United States. The population was 2,041 at the 2000 census. A popular tourist resort area, the towns of Damariscotta and Newcastle are linked by the Main Street bridge over the Damariscotta River, forming the "Twin Villages." The name Damariscotta is...
.
Portions of her original artwork are being displayed at Bowdoin College
Bowdoin College
Bowdoin College , founded in 1794, is an elite private liberal arts college located in the coastal Maine town of Brunswick, Maine. As of 2011, U.S. News and World Report ranks Bowdoin 6th among liberal arts colleges in the United States. At times, it was ranked as high as 4th in the country. It is...
.
Style
Throughout her career, Cooney used a variety of techniques, most used being pen and ink, acrylic paints, and pastels. Her illustrations are often described as folk artFolk art
Folk art encompasses art produced from an indigenous culture or by peasants or other laboring tradespeople. In contrast to fine art, folk art is primarily utilitarian and decorative rather than purely aesthetic....
, and most of her stories that she chose to illustrate were folk stories. While many of her books were in black and white, her "heart and soul are in color".
Quotes
- On her grandmother and mother: "She gave me all the materials I could wish for and then left me alone, didn’t smother me with instruction. Not that I ever took instruction very easily. My favorite days were when I had a cold and could stay home from school and draw all day long.... She was an enthusiastic painter of oils and watercolors. She was also very generous. I could mess with her paints and brushes all I wanted. On one condition: that I kept my brushes clean. The only art lesson my mother gave me was how to wash my brushes. Otherwise, she left me alone."
- On her graduation from Smith College: "I have felt way behind technically; and what I’ve learned I have had to teach myself. To this day, I don’t consider myself a very skillful artist."
- On her travels: “It was not until I was in my forties, in the fifth decade of my life, that the sense of place, the spirit of place, became of paramount importance to me. It was then that I began my travels, that I discovered, through photography, the quality of light, and that I gradually became able to paint the mood of place.”
- On her receiving the Caldecott Medal in 1959: "I believe that children in this country need a more robust literary diet than they are getting.... It does not hurt them to read about good and evil, love and hate, life and death. Nor do I think they should read only about things that they understand.... a man’s reach should exceed his grasp. So should a child’s. For myself, I will never talk down to—or draw down to—children."
- On her most favorite works: "Of all the books I have done, Miss Rumphius, Island Boy, and Hattie and the Wild Waves, are the closest to my heart. These three are as near as I ever will come to an autobiography".
Books Illustrated
- Ake and His WorldAke and His WorldAke and His World is a children's fiction book by Swedish poet Bertil Malmberg, published in 1924, and was also the first book by Barbara Cooney, who was to later win the Caldecott Medal twice, for both Chanticleer and the Fox and Ox-Cart Man. It was adapted to film in 1984, starring Allan Edwall....
, 1940 - Uncle Snowball, 1940
- The King of Wreck Island, 1941
- The Kellyhorns, 1942
- Captain Pottle’s House, 1943
- Shooting Star Farm, 1946
- American Folk Songs for Children, 1948
- Just Plain Maggie, 1948
- Animal Folk Songs for Children, 1950
- Read Me More Stories, 1951
- The Pony That Ran Away, 1951
- The Pony That Kept a Secret, 1952
- Too Many Pets, 1952
- American Folk Songs for Christmas, 1953
- Five Little PeppersFive Little PeppersThe Five Little Peppers book series was created by Margaret Sidney from 1881 to 1916. It covers the lives of the five children of Mamsie and the late Mister Pepper who are born into poverty in a rural "little brown house." The series begins with the Peppers in their native state and develops with...
, 1954 - The Little Fir Tree, 1954
- Little WomenLittle WomenLittle Women is a novel by American author Louisa May Alcott . The book was written and set in the Alcott family home, Orchard House, in Concord, Massachusetts. It was published in two volumes in 1868 and 1869...
, 1955 - Chanticleer and the FoxChanticleer and the Fox (book)In the children's book Chanticleer and the Fox, Barbara Cooney adapted and illustrated the story of Chanticleer and the Fox as told in The Nun's Priest's Tale in Chaucer's Canterbury Tales, translated by Robert Mayer Lumiansky. Published by Crowell in 1958, it was the recipient of the Caldecott...
, 1959 - The American Speller, 1961
- The Little Juggler, 1961
- Favorite Fairy Tales Told in Spain, 1963
- Wynken, Blynken and Nod, 1964
- The Courtship, Merry Marriage, and Feast of Cock Robin and Jenny Wren, 1965
- Snow White and Rose Red, 1966
- A Little Prayer, 1967
- Christmas, 1967
- The Crows of PearblossomThe Crows of PearblossomThe Crows of Pearblossom is a children's book written by Aldous Huxley, the famous English novelist, essayist and critic. The story was originally published by Random House and illustrated by Barbara Cooney...
, 1967 - A Garland of Games and Other Diversions, 1969
- The Owl and the PussycatThe Owl and the Pussycat"The Owl and the Pussycat" is a nonsense poem by Edward Lear, first published in 1871.- Background :Lear wrote the poem for a three-year-old girl, Janet Symonds, the daughter of Lear's friend poet John Addington Symonds and his wife Catherine Symonds...
, 1969 - Seven Little Rabbits, 1972
- Herman the Great, 1974
- Burton and Dudley, 1975
- Ox-Cart ManOx-Cart ManOx-Cart Man is the title of a 1979 book written by Donald Hall and illustrated by Barbara Cooney. It won the 1980 Caldecott Medal. The book deals with an 18th century farming family that uses an ox-cart to take their goods to market, where they make the money to buy the things they need.Ox-Cart Man...
, 1979 - Emma, 1980
- Little Brother and Little Sister, 1982
- Miss RumphiusMiss RumphiusMiss Rumphius is a children’s fiction book by Barbara Cooney, published in 1982. The book follows the life story of Miss Alice Rumphius, a woman who sought a way to make the world more beautiful, and who found it in planting lupins in the wild....
, 1982 - Island BoyIsland BoyIsland Boy is a 1988 book by Barbara Cooney. It tells the story of a boy named Matthias, who travels around the world but eventually returns to his home on Tibbetts Island in Maine...
, 1988 - The Year of the Perfect Christmas Tree, 1988
- Hattie and the Wild WavesHattie and the Wild WavesHattie and the Wild Waves is a 1990 book by Barbara Cooney. It tells the story of Hattie, who "is from a well to do German immigrant family and has a mind of her own." She looks to the ocean to decide what occupation to pursue as she grows up: painting.The book was described as being the closest...
, 1990 - Roxaboxen, 1991
- Only Opal: The Diary of a Young Girl, 1994
- EleanorEleanor (book)Eleanor is a biography of Eleanor Roosevelt's childhood, describing her as a shy girl who goes on to do great things. A children's book written by Barbara Cooney....
, 1996 - Basket MoonBasket MoonBasket Moon is the title of a 1999 children's book by Mary Lyn Ray. It was illustrator Barbara Cooney's last book, published six months before she died. The book details a 19th-century boy who makes baskets and sells them in town, similar to Cooney's earlier book, Ox-Cart Man. One magazine praised...
, 1999 - The Story of Holly and IvyThe Story of Holly and IvyThe Story of Holly and Ivy is a 1958 children's book written by Rumer Godden and illustrated by Barbara Cooney. Set in the town of Mill Valley, it is the story of Ivy, a young orphan girl who arrives there and finds the two things that she wants most of all: a family of her own and a Christmas doll...
, 1985 - Christmas in the Barn, 1952
- EmilyEmilyEmily is a common feminine name in Western society. For more on the name, see Emily .The name may refer to:-Actresses:* Emily Atack , British actress* Emily Barclay , New Zealand actress...
, 1992 - The Remarkable Christmas of the Cobbler's Sons, 1994
- Peter and the Wolf Pop-Up Book, 1986
- Letting Swift River Go
- Bambi a Life in the Woods
- Tortillitas Para Mama and Other Nursery Rhymes
- When the Sky is Like Lace
- The Man Who Didn't Wash His Dishes
- Kildee HouseKildee HouseKildee House is a children's novel by Rutherford George Montgomery. It tells the story of a house in a redwood forest which becomes a refuge for wildlife. The novel was first published in 1949 and was a Newbery Honor recipient in 1950. It is illustrated by Barbara Cooney....
- How the Hibernators Came to Bethlehem
- Best Christmas
- Mother Goose in French
- Princess Tales
- The Donkey Prince
- Louhi, Witch of North Farm: A Story From Finland's Epic Poem 'The Kalevala'
- City Springtime
- The Crows of Pearlblossom
- Favourite Fairy Tales Told in Spain
- Freckle Face
- Where Have You Been?
- Spirit Child: A Story of the Nativity
External links
- Barbara Cooney Papers, Archives & Special Collections at the Thomas J. Dodd Center, University of Connecticut
- Barbara Cooney's Obituary
- Barbara Cooney on Women Children's Book Illustrators
- Cooney Exhibits