Ezra Jack Keats’s Followers (373)

Ezra Jack Keats

Born

in Brooklyn, New York, The United States

March 11, 1916

Died

May 06, 1983

Website

https://www.ezra-jack-keats.org/

Genre

Children's

edit data

Ezra Jack Keats was an American writer and illustrator of children's books. He won the 1963 Caldecott Medal for illustrating The Snowy Day, which he also wrote. Many of Ezra’s stories are about a group of friends growing up in the city. The neighborhood they live in looks like the streets where Ezra grew up in Brooklyn, New York.

He was born Jacob Ezra Katz, the third child of Polish-Jewish immigrants Benjamin Katz and Augusta Podgainy. The family was very poor. Jack, as he was known, was artistic from an early age, and joyfully made pictures out of whatever scraps of wood, cloth and paper that he could collect. Benjamin Katz, who worked as a waiter, tried to discourage his son, insisting that artists lived terrible, impoverished lives. Neve Ezra Jack Keats was an American writer and illustrator of children's books. He won the 1963 Caldecott Medal for illustrating The Snowy Day, which he also wrote. Many of Ezra’s stories are about a group of friends growing up in the city. The neighborhood they live in looks like the streets where Ezra grew up in Brooklyn, New York.

He was born Jacob Ezra Katz, the third child of Polish-Jewish immigrants Benjamin Katz and Augusta Podgainy. The family was very poor. Jack, as he was known, was artistic from an early age, and joyfully made pictures out of whatever scraps of wood, cloth and paper that he could collect. Benjamin Katz, who worked as a waiter, tried to discourage his son, insisting that artists lived terrible, impoverished lives. Nevertheless, he sometimes brought home tubes of paint, claiming, "A starving artist swapped this for a bowl of soup."

With little encouragement at home, Keats sought validation for his skills at school and learned about art at the public library. He received a medal for drawing on graduating from Junior High School 149. Although unimpressive-looking, the medal meant a great deal to him, and he kept it his entire life. Keats attended Thomas Jefferson High School, where he won a national contest run by Scholastic for an oil painting depicting hobos warming themselves around a fire. At his graduation, in January 1935, he was to receive the senior class medal for excellence in art. Two days before the ceremony, Benjamin Katz died in the street of a heart attack. When Keats identified his father's body, he later wrote, "I found myself staring deep into his secret feelings. There in his wallet were worn and tattered newspaper clippings of the notices of the awards I had won. My silent admirer and supplier, he had been torn between his dread of my leading a life of hardship and his real pride in my work."

His father's death curtailed his dream of attending art school. For the remainder of the Great Depression until he was drafted for military service in World War II, Keats took art classes when he could and worked at a number of jobs, most notably as a mural painter under the New Deal program the Works Progress Administration (WPA) and as a comic book illustrator. At Fawcett Publications, he illustrated backgrounds for the Captain Marvel comic strip. He spent his military service (1943-45) designing camouflage patterns for the U.S. Army Air Force. In 1947, he petitioned to legally change his name to Ezra Jack Keats, in reaction to the anti-Semitic prejudice of the time.

Keats spent most of 1949 painting and studying in Paris, realizing a long-deferred dream of working as an artist. After returning to New York, he focused on earning a living as a commercial artist, undoubtedly influenced by his father's anxieties. His illustrations began to appear in Reader's Digest, The New York Times Book Review, Collier's and Playboy, and on the jackets of popular books. His work was displayed in Fifth Avenue store windows, and the Associated American Artists Gallery, in New York City, gave him exhibitions in 1950 and 1954.

In his unpublished autobiography, Keats wrote, "I didn't even ask to get into children's books." In fact, he was asked to do so by Elizabeth Riley of Crowell, which brought out his first children's title, Jubilant for Sure, written by Elisabeth Hubbard Lansing, in 1954. To prepare for the assignment, Keats went to rural Kentucky, where the story takes place, to sketch. Many children's books followed, including the Danny Dunn adventure series, by Jay Williams and Raymond Abrashkin, and an ethnographic series by Tillie S. Pine and Joseph Levine, beginning with The Indians Knew. All told, Keats illustrated nearly 70 books written by other authors.

In 1983, Keats died at the age of 67 following a heart attack. His last projects included designing the sets for a musical version of his book The Trip (which would later become the stage production Captain Louie), designing ...more

Combine Editions
Ezra Jack Keats’s books

Average rating: 4.19 · 148,762 ratings · 6,910 reviews · 122 distinct works • Similar authors

	The Snowy Day (Peter, #1) 4.20 avg rating — 119,329 ratings — published 1962 — 116 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	Whistle for Willie 4.26 avg rating — 11,481 ratings — published 1964 — 61 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	Peter's Chair 4.21 avg rating — 4,289 ratings — published 1967 — 62 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	The Little Drummer Boy 4.25 avg rating — 2,230 ratings — published 1968 — 8 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	Goggles! 3.96 avg rating — 1,743 ratings — published 1969 — 32 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	A Letter to Amy 4.01 avg rating — 1,224 ratings — published 1968 — 34 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	Pet Show! 3.90 avg rating — 906 ratings — published 1972 — 40 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	Hi, Cat! 3.64 avg rating — 693 ratings — published 1970 — 29 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	John Henry: An American Legend (Knopf Children's Paperbacks) 4.03 avg rating — 515 ratings — published 1965 — 28 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	Apt. 3 (Picture Books) 3.83 avg rating — 464 ratings — published 1971 — 20 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars

More books by Ezra Jack Keats…

Series by Ezra Jack Keats

Peter (7 books)
by

Ezra Jack Keats

4.20 avg rating — 139,658 ratings

Louie (4 books)
by

Ezra Jack Keats

3.73 avg rating — 1,205 ratings

Quotes by Ezra Jack Keats (?)

“One winter morning Peter woke up and looked out the window. Snow had fallen during the night. It covered everything as far as he could see.”
― Ezra Jack Keats, The Snowy Day

tags: children, snow

32 likes

Topics Mentioning This Author

topics	posts	views	last activity
The Seasonal Read...: * Summer Challenge 2011 Completed Tasks (DO NOT DELETE ANY POSTS)	2614	899	Aug 31, 2011 09:18PM
Chicks On Lit: Title and Author Game	4053	1747	Apr 16, 2013 09:48AM
The Next Best Boo...: Book Cover Hunt -- New Game Alert!!	2975	2002	May 30, 2013 12:46PM
The Next Best Boo...: The Title Game	20218	14601	May 30, 2013 12:53PM
Children's Books: December 2014: Snowmen (Master List and General Discussion)	19	28	Nov 24, 2014 06:44AM

More…

Ezra Jack Keats’s Followers (373)

Ezra Jack Keats

Combine EditionsEzra Jack Keats’s books

Series by Ezra Jack Keats

Topics Mentioning This Author

Combine Editions
Ezra Jack Keats’s books