• Source: Margot Zemach

Margot Zemach (November 30, 1931 – May 21, 1989) was an American illustrator of more than forty children's books, some of which she also wrote. Many were adaptations of folk tales from around the world, especially Yiddish and other Eastern European stories. She and her husband Harvey Fischtrom, writing as Harve Zemach, collaborated on several picture books including Duffy and the Devil for which she won the 1974 Caldecott Medal.




Life



Margot Zemach was born in Los Angeles. Her mother was an actress and her step-father was a director, so she grew up surrounded by the theater. When she was growing up there during the Great Depression, she used drawing to make people laugh but she never had enough paper. She studied at the Los Angeles County Art Institute and, on a Fulbright Scholarship in 1955–1956, at the Academy of Fine Arts Vienna in Austria.
In 1957, Zemach married Harvey Fischtrom (1933–1974). They had four daughters, including Kaethe Zemach who is another writer and illustrator of children's books. Margot Zemach died in Berkeley, California on May 21, 1989, of amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, or Lou Gehrig's disease.




Career


Zemach began her career when Fischtrom urged her to do children's books. Houghton Mifflin published their first collaboration in 1959, Small boy is listening, based on their experiences in Vienna. She did the illustrations and he did the text under the pseudonym Harve Zemach. Next year Little, Brown published her work with another writer, Take a Giant Step by Hannelore Hahn.
The husband-and-wife team produced 13 books together, often simply as "Harvey & Margot Zemach" although he wrote and she illustrated. For Duffy and the Devil: a Cornish tale (1973), Margot won the Caldecott Medal from the American Library Association recognizing the year's best-illustrated U.S. children's picture book. The book was also a finalist for the annual National Book Award, Children's Literature and it was named to the Lewis Carroll Shelf Award list in 1976. Zemach was one of the Caldecott runners-up in 1970 for The Judge: An Untrue Tale, written by Harve, and in 1978 for It Could Always Be Worse: A Yiddish Folk Tale, which she retold.
Kaethe Zemach's first publication was her only collaboration with her parents, published the year after her father died. The Princess and Froggie (Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 1975) was a collection of stories written by Harve and Kaethe, illustrated by Margot.
For her contribution as a children's illustrator, Zemach was 1980 and 1988 U.S. nominee for the biennial, international Hans Christian Andersen Award, the highest international recognition for creators of children's books.
A manuscript by Margot for a picture book about sibling rivalry, based on her children, was illustrated by Kaethe and published by Arthur A. Levine Books in 2005, Eating up Gladys.




Selected works






= As writer and illustrator

=
1963, The Three Sillies
1976, It Could always be Worse: A Yiddish Folk Tale
1976, Hush, Little Baby, a traditional lullaby
1977, To Hilda for Helping
1983, The Little Red Hen: An Old Story
1982, Jake and Honeybunch go to Heaven
1986, The Three Wishes: An Old Story
1988, The Three Little Pigs: An Old Story
2001, Some from the Moon, Some from the Sun: Poems and Songs for Everyone, traditional poems and songs




= Written by Harve Zemach

=
Margot Zemach illustrated picture books written by her husband as Harve Zemach. At least some book covers credited them simply as "Harve & Margot Zemach".

1959, Small Boy is Listening (Houghton Mifflin)
1961, A Hat with a Rose
1964, Nail Soup: A Swedish Folk Tale
1965, Salt: A Russian Tale
1965, The Tricks of Master Dabble
1966, Mommy, Buy Me a China Doll: Adapted From an Ozark Children's Song
1966, The Speckled Hen: A Russian Nursery Rhyme
1967, Too Much Nose: An Italian Tale
1969, The Judge: An Untrue Tale
1970, Awake and Dreaming
1971, A Penny A Look: An Old Story
1973, Duffy and the Devil (a Cornish tale)
1975, The Princess and Froggie, stories by Harve Zemach and Kaethe Zemach




= As illustrator with other writers

=
1960, Take a Giant Step, Hannelore Hahn (Little, Brown and Company)
1967, Mazel and Shlimazel, or The Milk of a Lioness, Isaac Bashevis Singer
1968, When Shlemiel Went to Warsaw and Other Stories, by Issac Bashevis Singer
1971, Alone in the Wild Forest, by Issac Bashevis Singer
1972, Simon Boom Gives a Wedding, by Yuri Suhl
1973, The Foundling and Other Tales of Prydain by Lloyd Alexander (first ed. only)
1976, Naftali the Storyteller and his Horse, Sus: And Other Stories, by Issac Bashevis Singer
1982, The Cat's Elbow and Other Secret Languages, by Alvin Schwartz
1985, The Sign in Mendel's Window, by Mildred Phillips
1987, The Two Foolish Cats: Suggested by a Japanese Folktale, by Yoshiko Uchida
1988, The Chinese Mirror, by Mirra Ginsburg
1988, Sing a Song of Popcorn: Every Child's Book of Poems, by Beatrice Schenk de Regniers
1989, All God's Critters got a Place in the Choir, by Bill Staines




= As writer only

=
2005, Eating Up Gladys, illustrated by Kaethe Zemach




References



Contemporary Authors Online, Thomson Gale, 2007.




External links



"Margot Zemach" at Embracing the Child
Margot Zemach at Library of Congress, with 50 library catalog records
Harve Zemach at LC Authorities, with 16 records, and at WorldCat
Kaethe Zemach at LC Authorities, with 12 records, and at WorldCat

Kata Kunci Pencarian:

• Margot Zemach
• Zemach
• Margot
• The Chronicles of Prydain
• Caldecott Medal
• November 21
• Isaac Bashevis Singer
• List of illustrators
• November 30
• Duffy and the Devil