ENG 331 – Author/Illustrator Report
July 16, 2003
Tomie dePaola
Tomie dePaola was
born on September 15, 1934 in Meriden, Connecticut to Joseph and Florence
dePaola. He has two sisters, Maureen and Judie, and had a brother, Joseph.
His family is Irish and Italian.
When Tomie dePaola
was four years old, he knew that he wanted to make picture books. His
mother always read to him and encouraged the love for books. When he
was ten years old, he had written books for his younger sisters’ birthdays.
One of these books was called Glimmera, the Story of a Mermaid.
Many of his stories are about his own life as a child. Some of these
stories include Tom, Watch Out For the Chicken Feet in Your Soup,
about his Italian grandmother, and Nana Upstairs & Nana Downstairs,
about his childhood experiences. These autobiographical stories are ethnic,
humorous, and touching, but none of his stories are sentimental. All
of them convey respect for family. He said that he wanted his books
to make children laugh and to help them feel safe.
Not only has he
done picture books, but he has a series of chapter books, the 26 Fairmount
Avenue series. He wrote this series in response to numerous letters
he had received from children. They had to write book reports about
their favorite authors, but they were not allowed to use picture books.
These stories are written from the point of view of Tomie looking back on
his life when he was nine years old. 26 Fairmount Avenue was
a Newbery Honor Book in 2000.
He has won many
other awards. Strega Nona was a Caldecott Honor Book in 1976.
He also won the Smithson Medal in 1990 given by the Smithsonian Institution,
which is awarded to individuals who have made distinguished contributions
to “the spreading of culture and knowledge.” Those are just a couple
examples of his many awards.
Since 1956, Tomie
dePaola has been a professional artist and designer, an art teacher, a painter,
a muralist, and an artist and author of books for children. He was an
art teacher for seventeen years. His murals can be found in many Catholic
churches and monasteries in the New England area. His work is characteristically
done in watercolor and in folk art style. He is a big lover of folk
art. He has illustrated almost two hundred books and written the stories
for ninety of them. Over five million copies of his books are in print
and have been published in over fifteen countries. He now lives in
New London, New Hampshire with his dogs. He has a studio in a large,
renovated two-hundred-year-old barn. His favorite book is his own book,
Nana Upstairs & Nana Downstairs.
Bibliography of Illustrator’s Work Used in Assignment
dePaola, Tomie. 26 Fairmount Avenue. New York: G. P.
Putnam’s Sons, 1999.
--. Nana Upstairs & Nana Downstairs. New York: G.
P. Putnam’s Sons, 1973.
--. Strega Nona. New York: Scholastic, Inc, 1975.
--. Tom. New York: G. P. Putnam’s Sons, 1993.
--. Watch Out For the Chicken Feet in Your Soup. Englewood Cliffs:
Prentice Hall, 1974.
Works Consulted
Berger, Laura Standley ed. 20th Century Children’s Writers.
Detroit: St. James Press, 1995.
Hechtel, Bob. Tomie dePaola. 10 July 2003. <http://www.tomiedepaola.com/>.
Loertscher, David. Biographical Index to Children’s & Young Adult
Authors & Illustrators. Castle Rock: Hi Willow Research and
Pub., 1992.
Temple, Charles, Miriam Martinez, Junko Yokota, and Alice Naylor.
Children’s Books in Children’s Hand. Boston: Allyn & Bacon,
2002.