What's a hero without a villain? It's a question asked in both literature and film, but with the immense popularity of villainous characters, it's no surprise. Villains provide entertainment and conflict and serve as foils from which we can see our favorite heroes from a new angle and against whom heroes can pit themselves to show what makes them special and heroic.
Each year, the Caldecott Medal is awarded to an illustrator who best exemplifies the highest quality of children's book illustrations published the previous year. Today's illustrator has released picture books for readers from the youngest up to middle grade. Though Kevin Henkes often utilizes colorful illustrations for his books and a lyrical style, his 2004 Caldecott Winning book, Kitten and the Full Moon, breaks from his typical style and utilizes black and white illustrations and straightforward writing style for young readers. Join us today as we take a look at Henkes' career in our Caldecott Winning Illustrators Series:
Octavia Butler was born in 1947 in Pasadena, California. From a young age, her mother encouraged her love of stories and writing, from buying her a typewriter in her childhood to using money for surgery to support her writing. Inspired by racial segregation and the prevalence of the white male protagonist in science fiction, Butler turned her attention to speculative fiction. She studied writing at UCLA and the Clarion Science Fiction Workshop. She sold short stories to anthologies and eventually released a novel that would become the first in her legendary Patternmaster series. Butler published throughout the entirety of her life, even throughout a battle with depression and writer's block. Her impressive body of work earned her both the Hugo and Nebula awards. She is also the first speculative fiction writer to receive a MacArthur Fellowship. She passed away in 2006 at the age of fifty-eight. Her work continues to impress and inspire. Join us today as we look at some of her most important works.
