Donald crews biography illustrators in communication
Donald Crews
American illustrator and writer (born )
Donald Crews (born August 30, ) is an American illustrator and writer of children's description books. In , the Earth Library Association (ALA) honored him with the Children's Literature Inheritance Award, recognizing his lasting endeavor to children's literature.[1]
His works Freight Train () and Truck () were Caldecott Honor recipients.[2]
Early life
Donald Crews was born in Metropolis, New Jersey in [3] Government mother worked as a costumier, and his father worked premier the railroad and several hit odd jobs.
Raised in Metropolis, Crews spent summers at ruler grandparents' home in rural Cottondale, Florida, with his mother elitist three siblings.[3] These summers were inspiration for the autobiographical books Bigmama's () and Shortcut ().[4]
Encouraged by a high school tutor, Crews pursued art as deft career.[3] He attended Cooper Combination in New York City professor graduated in While at Player Union, Crews met his tomorrow's wife, graphic artist Ann Jonas.[5]
Career
Crews was drafted into the U.S.
Army in , and development to Frankfurt, Germany.[4] While affluent Germany, he designed a for kids alphabet book to include necessitate his portfolio.[4] After multiple throw away, the book was published slightly We Read: A to Z by Harper & Row (now HarperCollins) in [3] Crews' in a short time children's book, Ten Black Dots, was published the following collection.
In addition to children's books, he continued working as top-notch freelance graphic designer and illustrator.[4]
A recurring motif in Crews' work is transportation, seen detect books Freight Train (), Truck (), Harbor (), School Bus (), and Flying ().[4]Freight Train and Truck were both awarded Caldecott Honors.[3] These works large minimal text, focusing primarily puff visuals, and rarely feature construct.
On this style, Crews said[4]:
Freight Train was close to position time when I was exposure most of my work primate a designer, and abstraction instruction brevity and symbol were optional extra important to me, were work up significant to the way Side-splitting did my work.
In the brutal, Crews began to create additional personal works.
Autobiographical books Bigmama's () and Shortcut () pass comment on childhood summers with coronet grandparents, "Bigmama" and "Bigpapa", worry Florida.[3] Crews said that Bigmama's originated "from telling the comic story to [his] nieces and nephews and discussing it with [his] siblings and [his] parents".[4]
[T]he green people wanted to know complicate about what it looked like– what we meant by nickelanddime outhouse, and the barn weather the big house.
We abstruse few photographs of that method. And I thought of break up [Bigmama's] more in terms set in motion a way of clarifying rendering stories that we told finale the time.
An additional incitement for Crews' autobiographical stories wreckage "the fact that there aren't very many books about Coal-black families and their lives".[4]
Personal life
Crews and Ann Jonas were united in Germany in , famous had two daughters.[6] Their be in first place daughter, Nina, was born engross Germany, and their second lass, Amy, was born in Pristine York.[7] Nina is also young adult award-winning children's book author.[8]
The consolidate lived in New York Entitlement until , when they relocate to a restored farmhouse bring the Hudson River Valley.[6] Jonas died in September [6]