Famous Author : Ezra Jack Keats

Long before multicultural characters and themes were fashionable, Ezra Jack Keats crossed social boundaries by being the first American picture-book maker to give the black child a central place in children’s literature.

Ezra Jack Keats was born in 1916, to impoverished Polish immigrants of Jewish descent.

It was evident early on that Jack was an artistically gifted child.

My Dog is Lost was Keats’ first attempt at writing his own children’s book. He co-authored the book with Pat Cherr and it was published in 1960. The main character is a boy, newly arrived in New York City from Puerto Rico, named Juanito. Even in this very early book Keats was innovative in his use of minority children as central characters.
 

In the two years that followed, Keats worked on a book featuring a little boy named Peter. An article Keats had clipped from Life magazine in 1940 inspired Peter. “Then began an experience that turned my life around—working on a book with a black kid as hero. None of the manuscripts I’d been illustrating featured any black kids—except for token blacks in the background. My book would have him there simply because he should have been there all along. Years before I had cut from a magazine a strip of photos of a little black boy. I often put them on my studio walls before I’d begun to illustrate children’s books. I just loved looking at him. This was the child who would be the hero of my book.”

The book featuring Peter, The Snowy Day, received the prestigious Caldecott Award for the most distinguished picture book for children in 1963. Peter appears in six more books growing from a small boy in The Snowy Day to adolescence in Pet Show.

The characters in Keats’ books come from the community around him. Many of his stories illustrate family life, the simple pleasures and more complex problems, that a child often encounters in his daily routine. To create his books, Keats drew upon his own childhood experiences, from having to flee from bullies to taking a ribbing from his pals for liking girls. But these are also the experiences of almost all children growing up in neighborhoods and communities in many parts of the world. This commonality explains the continuing popularity of Keats’ books and characters.  

By the time of Keats’ death following a heart attack in 1983, Keats had illustrated over 85 books for children, and written and illustrated 24 children’s classics. Although Keats never married or had a family of his own, he loved children, and was loved by them in return.