I first learned about him because he's kind of an icon at the elementary school I work at. He went there when it was still a junior high, after all. We one of his books, "Apt. 3," to a few classes for our "Bringing Books to Life" unit. A lot of my co-workers didn't like the premise of the story (about little boys becoming friends with a blind stranger in their apartment complex) but I was really captivated with the artwork, and I think that was what improved my view of the story itself.
I feel like Ezra and I have a lot in common. I was reading a bit of his biography, and he was out on his own in Manhattan when he was 23 (his parents lived in Brooklyn, though! Mine live in Washington State). He had some good friends but he seemed like the kind of person who enjoyed his solitude. He also went to Paris in his mid-twenties and worked there for almost a year as a painter- one of my ambitions is to live in Paris, perhaps studying art. He had budgeted to be there for three months and then he ended up being able to stay for a year because his art was so popular. Maybe I'll be as lucky?
I still haven't read "The Snowy Day" but it's on my reading priority list. The illustration I've seen from it are simply delightful.
1 comment:
the snowy day was one of my favorite growing up. i would lay in the entry to our home [where our bookshelf was] and read it again and again and again, especially when it was a snowy day and i had no one else to play with. i had a good imagination and suddenly i had a friend in a book playing parallel to me and i would go out and make a snow angel and pretend to have a pointy hat on. you should read it soon. and maybe i should knit it soon. the pointy hat. xoxo sarah sd.
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