 Front cover of Sylvester and the Magic Pebble | |
| Author | William Steig |
|---|---|
| Illustrator | William Steig |
| Cover artist | William Steig |
| Country | United States |
| Genre | Children's book |
| Publisher | Windmill Books/Simon & Schuster |
Publication date | September 24, 1969 |
| ISBN | 0-671-66269-4 |
| OCLC | 6087743 |
Sylvester and the Magic Pebble is a children's picture book written and illustrated by William Steig, and published in 1969. It won the Caldecott Medal in 1970.
Sylvester Duncan, a young donkey from the fictional community of Oatsdale, collects pebbles "of unusual shape and color." One day he finds a spherical red pebble that grants wishes. Immediately afterward, a lion scares Sylvester, and as a defense he wishes himself into a rock--the only thing he could think of at the moment. Unfortunately, the magic pebble falls off the rock, and Sylvester is unable to revert to his donkey form as the pebble must be in contact with the wish-maker to work. The rest of the story deals with the resulting aftermath: Sylvester's personal attempt to change back into his true self and Mr. and Mrs. Duncan's search for their only child.
Sylvester and the Magic Pebble earned Steig the 1970 Caldecott Medal, his first of many Caldecott and Newbery Medal honors. [1] The book was nominated for the 1970 National Book Award for Young People's Literature (losing out to Isaac Bashevis Singer's A Day of Pleasure). [2] In 1978, Sylvester and the Magic Pebble was given the Lewis Carroll Shelf Award.
The book was also featured on an episode of Between the Lions . [3]
In 1993, Weston Woods Studios adapted this book to an animated movie, narrated by John Lithgow and directed by Gene Deitch, with music by Steig's son, jazz flautist Jeremy Steig.
The story is used as an example by Noam Chomsky in the documentary film Is the Man Who Is Tall Happy? by Michel Gondry.
The book sparked some controversy, for its portrayal of the police as pigs, and, as a result was not stocked by public schools and libraries in parts of the United States. [4]
The John Newbery Medal, frequently shortened to the Newbery, is a literary award given by the Association for Library Service to Children (ALSC), a division of the American Library Association (ALA), to the author of "the most distinguished contributions to American literature for children". The Newbery and the Caldecott Medal are considered the two most prestigious awards for children's literature in the United States. Books selected are widely carried by bookstores and libraries, the authors are interviewed on television, and master's theses and doctoral dissertations are written on them. Named for John Newbery, an 18th-century English publisher of juvenile books, the winner of the Newbery is selected at the ALA's Midwinter Conference by a fifteen-person committee. The Newbery was proposed by Frederic G. Melcher in 1921, making it the first children's book award in the world. The physical bronze medal was designed by Rene Paul Chambellan and is given to the winning author at the next ALA annual conference. Since its founding there have been several changes to the composition of the selection committee, while the physical medal remains the same.
The Randolph Caldecott Medal, frequently shortened to just the Caldecott, annually recognizes the preceding year's "most distinguished American picture book for children". It is awarded to the illustrator by the Association for Library Service to Children (ALSC), a division of the American Library Association (ALA). The Caldecott and Newbery Medals are considered the most prestigious American children's book awards. Beside the Caldecott Medal, the committee awards a variable number of citations to runners-up they deem worthy, called the Caldecott Honor or Caldecott Honor Books.
William Sherman Pène du Bois was an American writer and illustrator of books for young readers. He is best known for The Twenty-One Balloons, published in April 1947 by Viking Press, for which he won the 1948 Newbery Medal. He was twice a runner-up for the Caldecott Medal for illustrating books written by others, and the two Caldecott Honor picture books, which he also wrote.
William Steig was an American cartoonist, illustrator and writer of children's books, best known for the picture book Shrek!, which inspired the film series of the same name, as well as others that included Sylvester and the Magic Pebble, Abel's Island, and Doctor De Soto. He was the U.S. nominee for both of the biennial, international Hans Christian Andersen Awards, as a children's book illustrator in 1982 and a writer in 1988.
Ezra Jack Keats was an American writer and illustrator of children's books. He won the 1963 Caldecott Medal for illustrating The Snowy Day, which he also wrote. Keats wrote A Letter to Amy and Hi, Cat! but he was most famous for The Snowy Day. It is considered one of the most important American books of the 20th century.
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Barbara Cooney was an American writer and illustrator of 110 children's books, published over sixty years. She received two Caldecott Medals for her work on Chanticleer and the Fox (1958) and Ox-Cart Man (1979), and a National Book Award for Miss Rumphius (1982). Her books have been translated into 10 languages.
Roger Antoine Duvoisin was a Swiss-born American writer and illustrator best known for children's picture books. He won the 1948 Caldecott Medal for picture books and in 1968 he was a highly commended runner-up for the biennial, international Hans Christian Andersen Award for children's illustrators.
The Lewis Carroll Shelf Award was an American literary award conferred on several books annually by the University of Wisconsin–Madison School of Education annually from 1958 to 1979. Award-winning books were deemed to "belong on the same shelf" as Alice's Adventures in Wonderland and Through the Looking-Glass by Lewis Carroll, having enough of the qualities of his work.
Robert Kraus was an American children's author illustrator, cartoonist and publisher. His successful career began early at the New Yorker Magazine, producing over hundreds of cartoons and nearly two dozen covers for the magazine over 15 years. Afterwards, he pivoted his career to children's literature, writing and illustrating over 100 children’s books and publishing even more as the founder of publishing house Windmill Books. His body of work is best remembered for depicting animal heroes who always try their best and never give up, which were ideals important to him at an early age.
Molly Garrett Bang is an American illustrator. For her illustration of children's books she has been a runner-up for the American Caldecott Medal three times and for the British Greenaway Medal once. Announced June 2015, her 1996 picture book Goose is the 2016 Phoenix Picture Book Award winner – that is, named by the Children's Literature Association the best English-language children's picture book that did not win a major award when it was published twenty years earlier.
Tuesday, written and illustrated by David Wiesner, is a 1991 wordless picture book published by Clarion Books. Tuesday received the 1992 Caldecott Medal for illustrations and was Wiesner's first of three Caldecott Medals that he has won during his career. Wiesner subsequently won the Caldecott Medal in 2002 for The Three Pigs, and the 2007 medal for Flotsam.
CDB! is a children's picture book written and illustrated by William Steig, who later won the Caldecott Medal in 1970 for Sylvester and the Magic Pebble. The book, published in 1968 by Simon & Schuster, is a collection of pictures with captions written in code, with letters in the caption standing for words the letter's names sound like (gramograms). The illustrations that accompany the codes show scenes that help the reader decode the caption. The cover illustration shows a child pointing out a bee to another child. The title, CDB!, thus translates as "See (CEE) the (DEE) bee (BEE)!" The book was updated by Steig over thirty years after its original publication with the addition of color to the illustrations, as well as an answer key at the end. Steig followed this book with a sequel, CDC?
The Lion & the Mouse is a 2009 nearly wordless picture book illustrated by Jerry Pinkney. This book, published by Little, Brown and Company, tells Aesop's fable of The Lion and the Mouse. In the story, a mouse's life is a spared by a lion. Later, after the lion is trapped, the mouse is able to set the lion free. Adapting the fable, with the moral that the weak can help the strong, as a wordless picture book was seen as a successful way of overcoming the brief plot generally found in the source stories. While it was Pinkney's first wordless picture book, it was not the first time he had told the story, having previously included it in his Aesop's Fables, published in 2000. Pinkney, who had received five Caldecott Honors, became the first African American to win the Caldecott Medal for his illustrations in this book. His illustrations were generally praised for their realism and sense of place. The cover illustrations, featuring the title characters but no text, drew particular praise.
Mary Buff and Conrad Buff II were married creators of illustrated children's books. Between 1937 and 1968, they collaborated on both text and illustrations to produce 14 books; four times they were a runner-up for the Caldecott Medal or Newbery Medal. They had a profound impact on children's literature in the middle of the 20th century.
Andy and the Lion, written and illustrated by James Daugherty, is a 1938 picture book published by Puffin Books. Andy and the Lion was a Caldecott Medal Honor Book for 1939 and was Daugherty's first Caldecott Honor Medal of a total of two during his career. Daughetry won another Caldecott Honor in 1957 for Gillespie and the Guards, which he both authored and Illustrated. Andy and the Lion was re-issued by Viking Press in 1967 in hardcover format. It was the fifteenth printing of March 1967. A modern retelling of the Androcles And The Lion common folktale about a young boy who loves to read about lions.
Javaka Steptoe is an American author and illustrator. He won the 2017 Caldecott Medal as well as the Americas Award for Children's and Young Adult Literature, and the Coretta Scott King Book Award from the American Library Association for his picture book Radiant Child: The Story of Young Artist Jean-Michel Basquiat.
Radiant Child: The Story of Young Artist Jean-Michel Basquiat is a 2016 picture book biography by Javaka Steptoe about Jean-Michel Basquiat. Using a style similar to Basquiat's, the book tells the story of his childhood and early career. It won the 2017 Caldecott Medal and Coretta Scott King Illustrator Award for its illustrations.
