William Pène du Bois
Encyclopedia
William Pène du Bois was a French American
author and illustrator. He was best known for The Twenty-One Balloons
, published in April 1947 by The Viking Press. From 1953 to 1960, he worked with George Plimpton
as the Art Editor for The Paris Review.
He died of a stroke on February 5, 1993, in Nice, France.
. His uncle, Guy Pène du Bois
, was a noted art critic and painter known for his landscapes and portraits. When he was eight, his family moved to France and he attended the Lycée Hoche at Versailles and the Lycée de Nice. His family returned to Nutley when he was 14. After high school he accepted a scholarship to the Carnegie Technical School of Architecture; but college plans dissolved when he sold a book he wrote to pass the time during a vacation. The Great Geppy was published before his 19th birthday.
unit stationed in Bermuda
. He worked as a correspondent for Yank magazine
. He also edited the camp newspaper and illustrated strategic maps.
In addition to writing and illustrating his own books, Pène du Bois illustrated books written by Jules Verne
, Isaac Bashevis Singer
, Rumer Godden
, Claire Huchet Bishop
and John Steinbeck
, as well as magazine articles and advertisements.
In 1960 he developed an interest in vintage cars, going to great pains and expense to refurbish a 1931 Brewster Croydon Coupe Rolls-Royce
P11.
He was one of the founding editors of The Paris Review along with Thomas Guinzburg
, Harold L. Humes
, Peter Matthiessen
, George Plimpton and John P. C. Train.
Among the highlights of his career were winning the Newbery Medal
in 1948 for The Twenty-One Balloons
, and Caldecott Honors in 1952 for Bear Party and 1957 for Lion.
Some of his books (Bear Party, Lion) are picture books with a minimum of text, and properly classified as children's literature
. Others, however, such as The Three Policemen, The Great Geppy, The Twenty-One Balloons, Squirrel Hotel, Peter Graves and The Giant, appeal to all ages. These books exhibit whimsical ingenuity in story and illustrations. Though not usually so classified, these books seem to qualify as science fiction
. Their interest lies more in their imaginative elaboration of ideas than in their characters. Some of his fictional ideas are fantastic but many are plausible, and some (such as the Balloon Merry-Go-Round in The Twenty-one Balloons) might well be feasible.
Many of his papers are in the collection of the New York Public Library, Humanities and Social Sciences Library, Manuscripts and Archives Division.
French American
French Americans or Franco-Americans are Americans of French or French Canadian descent. About 11.8 million U.S. residents are of this descent, and about 1.6 million speak French at home.An additional 450,000 U.S...
author and illustrator. He was best known for The Twenty-One Balloons
The Twenty-One Balloons
The Twenty-One Balloons is a novel by William Pène du Bois, published in 1947 and awarded the Newbery Medal for excellence in American children's literature in 1948. The story is about a retired schoolteacher whose ill-fated balloon trip leads him to discover an island full of great wealth and...
, published in April 1947 by The Viking Press. From 1953 to 1960, he worked with George Plimpton
George Plimpton
George Ames Plimpton was an American journalist, writer, editor, and actor. He is widely known for his sports writing and for helping to found The Paris Review.-Early life:...
as the Art Editor for The Paris Review.
He died of a stroke on February 5, 1993, in Nice, France.
Early life
William Pène du Bois was born in Nutley, New JerseyNutley, New Jersey
2010 Census Data:*TOTAL: 28,370 or 100%*White: 23,405 *African American: 628 *Asian: 2,824 *American Indian and Alaska Native: 36 *Native Hawaiian and Pacific Islander: 4...
. His uncle, Guy Pène du Bois
Guy Pène du Bois
Guy Pène du Bois was an early 20th century American painter. Born in the US to a French family, his work specialised in the culture and society around him: cafes, theatres, and in the twenties, flappers....
, was a noted art critic and painter known for his landscapes and portraits. When he was eight, his family moved to France and he attended the Lycée Hoche at Versailles and the Lycée de Nice. His family returned to Nutley when he was 14. After high school he accepted a scholarship to the Carnegie Technical School of Architecture; but college plans dissolved when he sold a book he wrote to pass the time during a vacation. The Great Geppy was published before his 19th birthday.
Writing career
By the time he entered the army at age 25, he had written and illustrated five more books. He spent his years in the army (1941–1945) with an artilleryArtillery
Originally applied to any group of infantry primarily armed with projectile weapons, artillery has over time become limited in meaning to refer only to those engines of war that operate by projection of munitions far beyond the range of effect of personal weapons...
unit stationed in Bermuda
Bermuda
Bermuda is a British overseas territory in the North Atlantic Ocean. Located off the east coast of the United States, its nearest landmass is Cape Hatteras, North Carolina, about to the west-northwest. It is about south of Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada, and northeast of Miami, Florida...
. He worked as a correspondent for Yank magazine
Yank, the Army Weekly
Yank, the Army Weekly was a weekly magazine published by the United States military during World War II. The idea for the magazine came from Egbert White, who had worked on Stars and Stripes during World War I. He proposed the idea to the Army in early 1942, and accepted a commission as Lieutenant...
. He also edited the camp newspaper and illustrated strategic maps.
In addition to writing and illustrating his own books, Pène du Bois illustrated books written by Jules Verne
Jules Verne
Jules Gabriel Verne was a French author who pioneered the science fiction genre. He is best known for his novels Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea , A Journey to the Center of the Earth , and Around the World in Eighty Days...
, Isaac Bashevis Singer
Isaac Bashevis Singer
Isaac Bashevis Singer – July 24, 1991) was a Polish Jewish American author noted for his short stories. He was one of the leading figures in the Yiddish literary movement, and received the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1978...
, Rumer Godden
Rumer Godden
Margaret Rumer Godden OBE was an English author of over 60 fiction and nonfiction books written under the name of Rumer Godden. A few of her works were co-written by her sister, Jon Godden, who wrote several novels on her own...
, Claire Huchet Bishop
Claire Huchet Bishop
Claire Huchet Bishop was a children's novelist and librarian, winner of the Newbery Honor for Pancakes-Paris and All Alone and the Josette Frank Award for Twenty and Ten...
and John Steinbeck
John Steinbeck
John Ernst Steinbeck, Jr. was an American writer. He is widely known for the Pulitzer Prize-winning novel The Grapes of Wrath and East of Eden and the novella Of Mice and Men...
, as well as magazine articles and advertisements.
In 1960 he developed an interest in vintage cars, going to great pains and expense to refurbish a 1931 Brewster Croydon Coupe Rolls-Royce
Rolls-Royce Limited
Rolls-Royce Limited was a renowned British car and, from 1914 on, aero-engine manufacturing company founded by Charles Stewart Rolls and Henry Royce on 15 March 1906 as the result of a partnership formed in 1904....
P11.
He was one of the founding editors of The Paris Review along with Thomas Guinzburg
Thomas Guinzburg
Thomas Henry Guinzburg was an American editor and publisher who served as the first managing editor of The Paris Review following its inception in 1953 and later succeeded his father as president of the Viking Press.Guinzburg was born on March 30, 1926, in Manhattan. His father Harold K...
, Harold L. Humes
Harold L. Humes
Harold Louis Humes, Jr. was known as HL Humes in his books, and usually as "Doc" Humes in life. He was the originator of The Paris Review literary magazine, author of two novels in the late 1950s, and a gregarious fixture of the cultural scene in Paris, London, and New York in the 1950s and early...
, Peter Matthiessen
Peter Matthiessen
Peter Matthiessen is a two-time National Book Award-winning American novelist and non-fiction writer, as well as an environmental activist...
, George Plimpton and John P. C. Train.
Among the highlights of his career were winning the Newbery Medal
Newbery Medal
The John Newbery Medal is a literary award given by the Association for Library Service to Children, a division of the American Library Association . The award is given to the author of the most distinguished contribution to American literature for children. The award has been given since 1922. ...
in 1948 for The Twenty-One Balloons
The Twenty-One Balloons
The Twenty-One Balloons is a novel by William Pène du Bois, published in 1947 and awarded the Newbery Medal for excellence in American children's literature in 1948. The story is about a retired schoolteacher whose ill-fated balloon trip leads him to discover an island full of great wealth and...
, and Caldecott Honors in 1952 for Bear Party and 1957 for Lion.
Some of his books (Bear Party, Lion) are picture books with a minimum of text, and properly classified as children's literature
Children's literature
Children's literature is for readers and listeners up to about age twelve; it is often defined in four different ways: books written by children, books written for children, books chosen by children, or books chosen for children. It is often illustrated. The term is used in senses which sometimes...
. Others, however, such as The Three Policemen, The Great Geppy, The Twenty-One Balloons, Squirrel Hotel, Peter Graves and The Giant, appeal to all ages. These books exhibit whimsical ingenuity in story and illustrations. Though not usually so classified, these books seem to qualify as science fiction
Science fiction
Science fiction is a genre of fiction dealing with imaginary but more or less plausible content such as future settings, futuristic science and technology, space travel, aliens, and paranormal abilities...
. Their interest lies more in their imaginative elaboration of ideas than in their characters. Some of his fictional ideas are fantastic but many are plausible, and some (such as the Balloon Merry-Go-Round in The Twenty-one Balloons) might well be feasible.
Many of his papers are in the collection of the New York Public Library, Humanities and Social Sciences Library, Manuscripts and Archives Division.
Personal life
Pène du Bois married debutante Jane Bouche in 1943; they later divorced, and in 1955 he married theatrical designer Willa Kim.Books
- The Great Geppy (1940): A striped horse (NOT a zebra) is hired to solve a robbery at a circus. To investigate the crime, Geppy poses as a variety of circus entertainers, including a freak, a tightrope walker, and a lion tamer. In the end he discovers that there has not been any theft; rather, the culprit has been breaking into the company safe to contribute money to the financially struggling circus. For his success, Geppy is honored as a hero and is even appointed the circus's newest star: he gives an extraordinary performance when shot from a cannon.
- The Twenty-One BalloonsThe Twenty-One BalloonsThe Twenty-One Balloons is a novel by William Pène du Bois, published in 1947 and awarded the Newbery Medal for excellence in American children's literature in 1948. The story is about a retired schoolteacher whose ill-fated balloon trip leads him to discover an island full of great wealth and...
(1947): A schoolteacher who decides to spend a year in a balloon but, because of an accident, crashes on KrakatoaKrakatoaKrakatoa is a volcanic island made of a'a lava in the Sunda Strait between the islands of Java and Sumatra in Indonesia. The name is used for the island group, the main island , and the volcano as a whole. The island exploded in 1883, killing approximately 40,000 people, although some estimates...
. It turns out that the island is populated by twenty families who share the wealth of a secret diamond mine. They have used their wealth to build elaborate houses which also serve as restaurants. They have a calendar with a 20-day month. On A day, everyone eats in Mr. and Mrs. A's American restaurant; on B day, in Mrs. and Mrs. B's British chop house; on C day, in Mr. and Mrs. C's Chinese restaurant; on D day, in Mr. and Mrs. D's Dutch restaurant, and so forth. When Krakatoa explodes, the families and the protagonist escape on a flying platform lofted by twenty balloons.
- Peter Graves (1950): A well-meaning but mischievous boy who encounters a gentlemanly and not-very-mad scientist named Houghton Furlong. Furlong is the inventor of an antigravity material named Furloy, and a Furloy-based invention called "the ball that bounces higher than the height from which you drop it." In an unfortunate accident with the latter invention, Peter destroys Houghton's house. Little of value is left in the wreckage except six balls of Furloy, each about the size of a tennis ball, with an antigravity pull of 25 pounds-forcePound-forceThe pound force is a unit of force in some systems of measurement including English engineering units and British gravitational units.- Definitions :...
(110 newtons) each. Peter commits himself to spending the summer with Houghton in an attempt to earn the $45,000 necessary to rebuild his house. The implied puzzle is: how can Peter and Houghton make use of the six Furloy balls to earn $45,000?
- Bear Party (1951)
- Squirrel Hotel (1952) is a bittersweet story about a man who builds an elaborate hotel for squirrels, with illustrations of the dollhouse-like structure full of squirrels sniffing, playing, sliding down spiral slides, and generating electricity for the lighting by running around a squirrel cage. The man disappears and the narrator tries to find him by tracing his purchases (48 miniature four-poster beds; 1 gross flashlight bulbs; 2 electric motors, MeccanoMeccanoMeccano is a model construction system comprising re-usable metal strips, plates, angle girders, wheels, axles and gears, with nuts and bolts to connect the pieces. It enables the building of working models and mechanical devices....
; 6 American flags; etc.).
- The Giant (1954): An eight-year-old boy is seven stories tall because he has "a perfect digestive system": if the boy eats one pound of food, he gains one pound of body mass. Illustrations show the various arrangements made by family and friends to take care of him. He is sweet and well-mannered, but great effort is taken to conceal him because of the fear and hostility giants arouse. The narrator befriends him and comes up with a plan to introduce him to the public in such a way that they will accept him, so he will not need to spend his life in concealment.
- Lion (1957): An angel tries to design the animal known to us as a lion. This angel is new to the skill of designing animals, and his first few attempts are reviewed by his fellow artists as lacking for one reason or another. The angel perseveres and eventually Lion is perfected. It is a story about art, artists, creativity, and finding one's place in the world – for both the angel (amidst his fellow angels) and the lion.
- Otto at Sea (1958): A giant dog named Otto (akin to Clifford the Big Red DogClifford the Big Red DogClifford the Big Red Dog is an American children's book series first published in 1963. Written by Norman Bridwell, the series helped establish Scholastic Books as a premier publishing company....
) goes on a voyage.
- Otto in Texas (1959): Otto the giant dog visits Texas, where he discovers a dinosaur skeleton and a tunnel used by oil rustlers.
- Otto In Africa (1961): Further adventures of Otto the giant dog.
- The Three Little Pigs (1962): The familiar story is told in verse.
- Elizabeth the Cow Ghost (1964)
- The Alligator Case (1965)
- The 3 Policemen, or, Young Bottsford of Farbe Island (1965): The ingenuity of ten-year-old Bottsford enables the three clownish policemen of an isolated idyllic isle to catch thieves who have been stealing the islanders' fish and fishing nets.
- Lazy Tommy Pumpkinhead (1966): A boy lives in an electric house that automatically tips him out of bed into the bath, dresses him and feeds him breakfast every morning without requiring him to move a muscle. After each morning routine he yawningly climbs up a staircase that takes him until bedtime to reach the top of, at which point he tiredly goes to bed and sleeps until next morning's automatic wakeup. However, a power failure incapacitates the entire house and causes Tommy to sleep for seven days. When the power resumes, his bed tips him into seven-day-cold water. Shivering and struggling to get out of the tub, he lands upside-down in his clothes, is showered with a seven-day backup of breakfast food, and ends up sitting in a big mess on the floor. This serves as a moral to children not to be lazy, but to arise promptly every morning, take their own bath, and dress and feed themselves.
- The Horse in the Camel Suit (1967): The town policeman, in a huff, locks up a show troupe and a young detective contrives to set them free without hurting the policeman's feelings. He discovers, however, that they actually are criminals, and he must get them behind bars again.
- Porko von Popbutton (1969): A 274 pound thirteen-year-old boy whose sole passion is food is miserable when sent to boarding school until he accidentally gets on the hockey team. Also published under the title of Beat the Queen in Sports IllustratedSports IllustratedSports Illustrated is an American sports media company owned by media conglomerate Time Warner. Its self titled magazine has over 3.5 million subscribers and is read by 23 million adults each week, including over 18 million men. It was the first magazine with circulation over one million to win the...
of December 23, 1968. - Otto And The Magic Potatoes (1970): Further adventures of Otto the giant dog.
- Call Me BandicootCall Me BandicootCall Me Bandicoot is a 1970 young adult novel written by U.S. author William Pène du Bois. The novel takes place on the Staten Island Ferry and focuses on the relationship between an adult passenger and a young man who spins tall tales in exchange for food....
(1970): A fast-talking young man entertains passengers on the Staten Island FerryStaten Island FerryThe Staten Island Ferry is a passenger ferry service operated by the New York City Department of Transportation that runs between the boroughs of Manhattan and Staten Island.-Overview:...
in exchange for food and money. Serialized in Children's DigestChildren's DigestChildren's Digest was a children's magazine published from Oct. 1950 to May/June 2009, after which it was merged with Jack and Jill from the same publisher. For over 20 years it was published in the digest size implied by its name, but it subsequently switched to a larger format more similar to...
. - Bear Circus (1971)
- The Forbidden Forest (1978): Lady Adelaide, a boxing kangaroo, helps to defeat the German army, thus becoming a heroine of the Great War.
- Castles and Dragons