Caldecott Medal-winning artist Marc Simont has died. He was 97-years-old. Over the course of his career, he illustrated almost one hundred books.
Simont became well-known for his work in children’s literature such as Marjorie Weinman Sharmat’s Nate the Great series and Janice May Udry’s A Tree Is Nice.
He also collaborated with many adult writers including sportswriter Red Smith and humorist James Thurber.
Here’s more from The New York Times:
Mr. Simont began illustrating children’s books in the late 1930s, and became known for his ability to adapt that style to a vast array of subjects, from the sprightly fauna of The Happy Day by Ruth Krauss (1949), to the deadly earnest Brooklyn Dodger games in Bette Bao Lord’s In the Year of the Boar & Jackie Robinson (1984), about a Chinese girl’s adjustment to postwar American life. His career was bracketed by two Caldecott Honor Books, as the runners-up for the medal are designated: The Happy Day and The Stray Dog based on a story by Reiko Sassa, published in 2001.