In Memoriam: Remembering Those Lost in 2022

As we enter into a new year, we remember those lost to us in 2022. So many of these creators’ books touched the minds and hearts of children everywhere. Their works will outlive us all. We celebrate their lives and works.

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Steve Jenkins

March 31, 1952 – December 26, 2021

“I so admired his extraordinary design sensibility and the way he infused his creatures with a special spark that made them feel almost alive. He had a thoughtful and uncommonly mellow manner—always laced with a touch of humor— that made him a true pleasure to work with. He was so wonderfully mellow, in fact, that his art directors and I noted we always felt significantly calmer after speaking with him. We will miss Steve very much, but it is comforting to know that his fascinating and gorgeous books will continue captivating children for many years to come.” – Andrea Welch, Publishers Weekly

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Ali Mitgutsch

August 21, 1935 – January 10, 2022

“Cheeky, funny and affectionate, he looked at the world and at our human weaknesses.” – President Frank-Walter Steinmeier of Germany, New York Times

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Ashley Bryan

July 13, 1923 – February 4, 2022

“But we throw ‘National Treasure’ around so cavalierly that when you get to know one, you realize how rare they are, and you want the world to dance jubilee in their honor. He deserved it. My god, Ashley, have you earned your rest.” – Jason Reynolds, NPR

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Leonard Kessler

October 28, 1920 – February 16, 2022

“I have a purple door. I have a purple studio,” he told The Tampa Bay Times in 2005. “I think purple is a color that vibrates. I think that’s me.” – Leonard Kessler, The New York Times

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Jan Pieńkowski

August 8, 1936 – February 19th, 2022

“Jan was one of the great storytellers: an exceptionally talented creator, who was led by what interested him, and who treated children as his equals … There was an impatience and wonderful curiosity to him, as he looked for new ways to tell stories: drawing on his Polish roots with his cut-out and silhouette work; his extraordinary use of colour; his pioneering interest in drawing on the computer; and of course his award-winning pop-ups which challenged publishers and printers to find new ways to create his books.” – Francesca Dow, The Guardian

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Paula Cohen

June 26, 1964 – February 24, 2022

“Paula was so much like Shirley, the protagonist of her debut picture book. She was thoughtful, fiery, sweet, funny, talented, and wildly determined. She loved her family, her friends, and her community and she made the world a friendlier place. It was a true honor to be a small part of making one of Paula’s big dreams come true. She will be missed by all of us in her extended family.” – Christy Ewers, Publishers Weekly

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Shirley Hughes

July 16, 1927 – February 25, 2022

“Shirley and the characters she’s drawn and written about are a great family of witnesses to the power of love and kindness. We could talk for hours – with a multitude of examples – of her mastery of the craft of illustration, of her close and unwavering observation of children as they’re busy with all the things that are so important to them, of her sheer technical genius. But the best tribute to her lifetime of production is the physical state of the books of hers on bedside tables, or crammed into bookshelves, or face-down on the floor under the bed: battered, bent, torn here and there, perhaps chewed a little, scribbled on – these books have been loved almost to destruction. She will last as long as there are children.” – Philip Pullman, The Guardian

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Patricia MacLachlan

March 3, 1938 – March 31, 2022

“PattyMac, as we in the writing group often called her, was more than just a brilliant writer. She was a sort of Dorothy Parker figure—sharp and funny—crossed with an Emily Dickinson wordsmith. ‘I’m no poet, you know,’ she would say to us, when we were talking about a piece she just read to us, her own lines of the picture book putting the lie to such a statement. We watched her struggle with macular degeneration and marveled that even blind, she was writing more than any of us. She always had a new piece, or part of a new book for us to hear. She was finishing revisions on a new novel even as death crept up behind her. Was she one of a kind? She was three of a kind, I think. I know no one else like her—soft and sharp, witty and snarky, and the most loving mom and grandmother in the world. In fact, the world has been mothered by her. Just read her books and you will know what I mean.” – Jane Yolen, Publishers Weekly

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David McKee

January 2, 1935 – April 6, 2022

“I’ve often said I think the air is full of stories – you just have to have the right receiver and you pick them up.” – David McKee, The Guardian

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Patricia McKillip

‘February 29, 1948 – May 6, 2022

“At it’s best, fantasy rewards the reader with a sense of wonder about what lies at the heart of the commonplace world. The greatest tales are told over and over, in many ways, through centuries. Fantasy changes with the changing times, and yet it is still the oldest kind of tale in the world, for it began once upon a time, and we haven’t heard the end of it yet.” – Patricia McKillip, terriwindling.com

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Jim Murphy

‘September 25, 1947 – May 1, 2022

“Jim was an inquisitive and passionate researcher. He had a remarkable talent for finding the voices that would bring his narratives to life, in letters, diaries, and periodicals, as if he had personally interviewed people from the past. Jim was also one of the funniest people I ever met. For readers wishing for a more rounded picture, Jim’s novel Revenge of the Green Banana offers a glimpse of his comic side and his years as a mischief-maker in elementary school. I’m sad to think I won’t have the pleasure of working with him again.” – Dinah Stevenson, Publishers Weekly

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Ronni Solbert

September 7, 1925 – June 9, 2022 

“Art is my sanity, joy, frustration and passion. My subject is the human animal, our relationship with each other and to the world we inhabit. I want the work to invite reflection, open perspectives and challenge the viewers’ emotional and intellectual responses.” – Ronni Solbert, Cranbrook Art Museum

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Uri Orlev

February 24, 1931 – July 26, 2022

Orlev’s books “manage to depict his youth in the Holocaust and his immigration to the country and to make the difficulty accessible to children and teenagers through his unique writing.” – Israel Culture and Sports Minister Chili Tropper, The Times of Israel

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Charlotte Pomerantz

July 24, 1930 – July 24, 2022

“I started writing because it was the only thing I was ever good at.” – Charlotte Pomerantz, The New York Times

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Jeanne Steig

May 2, 1930 – July 26, 2022

She was (and is) my hero, the best example I can summon about how to live a life. She started making art when Bill said to her, ‘You can’t sit on your ass all day. You have to work with your hands!’ Jeanne loved bright socks, shopping for them and wearing them; she explained their purpose: when she watched her nightly gory movie, she’d rest her feet on an ottoman and admire her socks. That was Jeanne in a nutshell. She found joy wherever she went. She had a bigger appetite than anyone I know—for food, for love, for art, for friends, for life. Poet, writer, artist, mensch—all of those things she was. What a gift to the world.” – Holly McGhee, Publishers Weekly

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Raymond Briggs

January 18, 1934 – August 9, 2022

“I knew Briggs himself only very slightly: I met him on a couple of occasions. He had a wonderful, comically grumpy manner – deadpan and modest with it. He was also straightforwardly generous and kind. People pointed him out in a room. In fact, if you wanted to know he was there, he had to be pointed out, because he was so un-flamboyant in his appearance. I can’t vouch for his pyjamas but there’s a good chunk of him in the character of his Father Christmas. I heard about his passing from a call while I was in a taxi. I told the cabby. He didn’t recognise the name. “The man who wrote ‘The Snowman’,” I said. Yes, he knew that all right. The wordless picture book and its film adaptation are classics. The story touches on themes of friendship, change, loss, death, the rhythm of life, the chain of being between us – all done in a short space. With this book and across all his work, we have been lucky to have read and watched such great work from a great artist with a great heart.” – Michael Rosen, The Guardian

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Jean-Jaques Sempé

August 17, 1932 – August 11, 2022

“Jazz, tender irony, the delicacy of intelligence…Jean-Jacques Sempé had the elegance of always remaining light without anything escaping him.” – French President Emmanuel Macron, Kirkus

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Liz Goulet Dubois

January 13, 1967 – August 14, 2022

“She was such a funny, vibrant woman and an absolute delight.” – Eliza Smith, Publishers Lunch

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Dennis Nolan

October 19, 1945 – August 16, 2022

“Keeping it simple and magical is the best way to travel. And the magic is always there if we take the time to notice it”. – Dennis Nolan, legacy.com

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Jill Pinkwater

May 29, 1941-October 4, 2022

“I just want to say… not just that I love her, that’s obvious, but that she is the single greatest person I have met, ever. And quite a few things that people tend to like and/or respect about me are actually Jill. I don’t feel grief, I feel gratitude.” – Daniel Pinkwater, Publishers Weekly

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George Booth

June 28, 1926 – November 1, 2022

“The man himself: tall, with a Will Rogers-like tuft of hair falling onto his forehead. A gentle man, with a touch of Missouri accent (that makes sense: it’s where he was born). Booth was a real character. Spend any time with him and you would be treated to his bursts of laughter – perhaps a snort! Laughing full out loud when he was surprised by humor in others. He wasn’t the least bit shy about laughing at his own work – an honest reaction to absurdities he’d laid down on paper … His laughter, like his cartoons, providing moments of contagious pure joy.” – Michael Maslin, The Daily Cartoonist

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Marcus Sedgewick

April 8, 1968 – November 15, 2022

“He was always bursting with ideas and could create different worlds while keeping his stories very easy to relate to … He had a vast brain as well as all of that creativity.” – Fiona Kennedy, The Guardian

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Marijane Meaker

May 27, 1927 – November 21, 2022

“That’s one thing – and, of course, so many changes – the freedom in the – among the young people to announce that they’re gay, the idea that it is not unusual today for a parent to hear from a child, I’m gay, and to handle it. And you don’t seem to hear any more about going to an analyst to be cured. It doesn’t exist anymore. And even the psychoanalytic society has finally taken the – taken us off the abnormal list. I see progress everywhere, and I – and it’s thrilling to me.” – Marijane Meaker, NPR

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Wolf Erlbruch

June 30, 1948 – December 11, 2022

“Erlbruch is not averse to crassness and the grotesque and, to quote from Horst Künnemann’s 2005 article on Erlbruch in Bookbird, he consistently challenges “traditional squeamishness.” Children, Erlbruch was quoted in a 1996 interview, “are entitled to illustrations that have a certain crudeness.” Just as Erlbruch stretches the limits of the page, he also stretches the limits of acceptable content — consider that perhaps his most brilliant and profound work is about an ogress and her penchant for eating young children — but above all he stretches the imagination.” – Jeffrey Garrett, IBBY

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