Shane W. Evans is an American children's book author, illustrator, painter, storyteller, and musician born in New York. He attended the Syracuse University School of Visual and Performing Arts and majored in illustration. Evans' work has been featured on The Oprah Winfrey Show , The Today Show , Reading Rainbow , and Late Night with David Letterman . [1]
Evans is the recipient of the Orbis Pictus Award for Outstanding Non-Fiction for Children and the Boston Globe-Horn Book Award. [2] In 2002, he was chosen by First Lady Laura Bush to be honored at the 2002 National Book Festival. [3] He illustrated the Shanna book series by Jean Marzollo, which was adapted into a Disney cartoon and then spun off into a television show called Shane's Kindergarten Countdown.
Evans has illustrated multiple children's books written by his friend, actor Taye Diggs. [4]
Evans is the mixed-race child of parents who come from different cultural backgrounds. He also has a mixed-race daughter of his own, and this has influenced his interest in working on books that tackle the issues of growing up as a mixed-race individual. [5]
Evans went to school in Buffalo and Rochester and later attended Syracuse University School of Visual and Performing Arts [6] where he majored in illustration. He was interested in art from a young age and went to school with notable artists like Taye Diggs, Jesse Martin, and Tweet.
Evans spent some time working as a designer for Hallmark Cards and Rolling Stone and illustrated over 30 children's books before he opened up his own studio at 31st and Holmes in Kansas City, MO. Named Dream Studio, it was designed to be a 2200 square foot work space for Shane, an art gallery, a music venue, and a community gathering space.
Evans' primary mediums for illustration are oil, pen, ink, and computer. He is inspired by his travels to places around the world like West Africa, Europe, Japan, China, and South America. When he began illustrating children's books, he knew there was a need for books that represented children and people of color. [1]
Children's books he has illustrated include:
He also plays guitar.
Walter Crane was an English artist and book illustrator. He is considered to be the most influential, and among the most prolific, children's book creators of his generation and, along with Randolph Caldecott and Kate Greenaway, one of the strongest contributors to the child's nursery motif that the genre of English children's illustrated literature would exhibit in its developmental stages in the later 19th century.
Eric Carle was an American author, designer and illustrator of children's books. His picture book The Very Hungry Caterpillar, first published in 1969, has been translated into more than 66 languages and sold more than 50 million copies. Carle's career as an illustrator and children's book author accelerated after he collaborated on Brown Bear, Brown Bear, What Do You See?. Carle illustrated more than 70 books, most of which he also wrote, and more than 145 million copies of his books have been sold around the world.
Scott Leo "Taye" Diggs is an American actor. He is known for his roles in the Broadway musicals Rent and Hedwig and the Angry Inch, the TV series Private Practice (2007–2013), Murder in the First (2014–2016), and All American (2018–2023), and the films How Stella Got Her Groove Back (1998), Brown Sugar, Chicago, Malibu's Most Wanted (2003), Dylan Dog: Dead of Night (2011), and The Best Man (1999) and its sequel, The Best Man Holiday (2013).
Randolph Caldecott was a British artist and illustrator, born in Chester. The Caldecott Medal was named in his honour. He exercised his art chiefly in book illustrations. His abilities as an artist were promptly and generously recognised by the Royal Academy. Caldecott greatly influenced illustration of children's books during the nineteenth century. Two books illustrated by him, priced at a shilling each, were published every Christmas for eight years.
Thomas Anthony "Tomie" dePaola was an American writer and illustrator who created more than 260 children's books, such as Strega Nona. He received the Children's Literature Legacy Award for his lifetime contribution to American children's literature in 2011.
The Snowy Day is a 1962 American children's picture book by American author and illustrator Ezra Jack Keats. It features Peter, an African American boy, who explores his neighborhood after the season's first snowfall. Keats’ illustrations helped pave the way for more inclusive and diverse children's literature. Keats received the 1963 Caldecott Medal for his collage artwork, which made The Snowy Day the first picture book with an African American protagonist to win a major children's award. The book's reception was largely positive, although some critics pointed out subtle stereotypes, such as how Peter's mother was portrayed. Since its publication, The Snowy Day has sold millions of copies and has been translated, adapted, and honored, leaving a lasting impression on generations of readers.
Gordon Frederick Browne was an English artist and a prolific illustrator of children's books in the late 19th century and early 20th century. He was a meticulous craftsman and went to a great deal of effort to ensure that his illustrations were accurate. He illustrated six or seven books a year in addition to a huge volume of magazine illustration.
Salvatore "Sal" Murdocca is an American children's book illustrator. He is best known for illustrating the Magic Tree House series written by Mary Pope Osborne and the nonfiction Magic Tree House Fact Checkers by Osborne and collaborators —about 50 and 30 volumes respectively to 2014. He also illustrated a series by George Edward Stanley.
Edmund Evans was an English wood-engraver and colour printer during the Victorian era. He specialized in full-colour printing, a technique which, in part because of his work, became popular in the mid-19th century. He employed and collaborated with illustrators such as Walter Crane, Randolph Caldecott, Kate Greenaway and Richard Doyle to produce what are now considered to be classic children's books. Little is known about his life, although he wrote a short autobiography before his death in 1905 in which he described his life as a printer in Victorian London.
Jake Parker is an American comics short-story creator, concept artist, illustrator, and animator. Parker worked as a set designer for Blue Sky Studios where he contributed to the animated films Horton Hears a Who, Rio and Epic. Parker is a children's book illustrator; his work includes the 2015 New York Times bestseller The Little Snowplow. In 2016, he wrote and illustrated his first children's book Little Bot and Sparrow which was inspired by his "Robot and Sparrow" comic. He is the creator of Inktober, a popular annual ink drawing celebration during October.
Ashley Frederick Bryan was an American writer and illustrator of children's books. Most of his subjects are from the African-American experience. He was a U.S. nominee for the Hans Christian Andersen Award in 2006 and he won the Children's Literature Legacy Award for his contribution to American children's literature in 2009. His picture book Freedom Over Me was short-listed for the 2016 Kirkus Prize and received a Newbery Honor.
Kelly Murphy is an American author, illustrator and educator. She is based in Providence, Rhode Island.
Rafael López is an internationally recognized illustrator and artist. To reflect the lives of all young people, his illustrations bring diverse characters to children's books. As a children's book illustrator, he has received three Pura Belpré Award medals from the Association for Library Service to Children (ALSC), a division of the American Library Association (ALA), and REFORMA in 2020 for Dancing Hands: How Teresa Carreño Played the Piano for President Lincoln,Drum Dream Girl in 2016 and Book Fiesta! in 2010. He created the National Book Festival Poster for the Library of Congress and was a featured book festival speaker at this event.
Richard Allen "Rick" Jacobson is a Canadian artist, illustrator, and writer who uses the names Richard A. Jacobson and Rick Jacobson professionally.
Kelly Starling Lyons is an American writer and children's book author. She is also one of the founding members of the blog The Brown Bookshelf, which raises awareness of Black children's book creators and features author and illustrator spotlights.
Melissa Sweet is an American illustrator and writer of nearly 100 books for children and young readers.
Hope Anita Smith is an American poet and author of children's books, best known for her Coretta Scott King Award-winning middle grade novel Keeping the Night Watch.
Grant Snider is an American cartoonist, comic strip artist, writer and orthodontist.
Francine Haskins, a Washington, D.C. native, is an American multi-media fiber artist and book illustrator. She was one of the original founders of 1800 Belmont Arts, an African- American black art collective in Washington, D.C. (1991-–2001).
Jason Chin is an author and illustrator of children's books. His books, which usually deal with science and nature, were the recipients of a Caldecott Medal, a Sibert Honor and a Orbis Pictus Award.