Holly Meade (b.

Winchester, Massachusetts Winchester is a town in Middlesex County, Massachusetts, located 8.2 miles (13.2 km) north of downtown Boston as part of the Greater Boston metropolitan area. It is also one of the List of Massachusetts locations by per capita income, wealt ...

, September 14, 1956 - d. June 28, 2013) was an American artist best known for her

woodblock prints Woodblock printing or block printing is a technique for printing text, images or patterns used widely throughout East Asia and originating in China in antiquity as a method of printing on textiles and later paper. Each page or image is create ...

and for her illustrations for children's

picture books A picture book combines visual and verbal narratives in a book format, most often aimed at young children. With the narrative told primarily through text, they are distinct from comics, which do so primarily through sequential images. The images ...

. Meade's illustrations for '' Hush!: A Thai Lullaby'' (1996, Orchard Books,) by

Minfong Ho Minfong Ho is a Chinese–American writer. Her works frequently deal with the lives of people living in poverty in Southeast Asian countries. Despite being fiction, her stories are always set against the backdrop of real events, such as the st ...

won a 1997

Caldecott Honor 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 ...

for illustration. ''John Willy and Freddy McGee'' (Marshall Cavendish, 1998,) which Meade both wrote and illustrated, was an honoree for the Charlotte Zolotow Award for Creative Writing.

Biography

Meade was the daughter of Russell and Joanne Meade of Winchester, Massachusetts. She earned her A.B. from the

Rhode Island School of Design The Rhode Island School of Design (RISD , pronounced "Riz-D") is a private art and design school in Providence, Rhode Island. The school was founded as a coeducational institution in 1877 by Helen Adelia Rowe Metcalf, who sought to increase the ...

in 1978. She lived in

Sedgwick, Maine Sedgwick is a town in Hancock County, Maine, United States. The population was 1,202 at the 2020 census. The town includes the village of ''Sargentville''. The countryside around Sedgwick is a haven for birdwatchers, as well as an out-of-the-wa ...

and had 2 children, Jenny and Noah Smick.

Career

Meade worked in "drawing, collage, printmaking, basket making, and fabric design." In 1992, she illustrated her first of many children's picture books, an endeavor that she called "the other focus of my work life". She began to work in woodblock printing in 2002, following a workshop with printmaker Hester Stinnett at the Haystack Mountain School. Some of her prints are in the permanent collection of the

Portland Museum of Art The Portland Museum of Art, or PMA, is the largest and oldest public art institution in the U.S. state of Maine. Founded as the Portland Society of Art in 1882. It is located in the downtown area known as The Arts District in Portland, Maine. Hi ...

. Woodblock prints illustrate some of her later picture books, including David Elliott’s series that includes ''On the Farm'' (Candlewick, 2008), ''In the Wild'' (2010) and ''In the Sea'' (2012).

Children's books

She used torn paper to illustrate the 1997 book

Cocoa Ice Cocoa Ice is a 1997 illustrated children's picture book by Diana Appelbaum, illustrated by Holly Meade. It was first published by Orchard Books. Cocoa Ice tells parallel stories of two little girls, one in Maine, where ice is harvested on the ...

, which was given a Lupine Award by the Maine Library Association. Meade describe the challenge of illustrating the parallel story with, "pictures where a tropical place and warm palette must go hand in hand with a bare landscape and cool palette." Her book ''John Willy and Freddy McGee'' was a 1999

Charlotte Zolotow Award The Charlotte Zolotow Award is an American literary award presented annually for outstanding writing in a picture book published in the United States during the preceding year. By contrast, the Caldecott Medal is for outstanding illustration in ...

Honor Book.

Selected Bibliography

The follow is a selection of some of the works Meade published.

Author and Illustrator

2001 ''A Place to Sleep'' 2001 ''The Rabbit's Bride by the Brother's Grimm'' 2003 ''John Willy and Freddy McGee'' 2005 ''Inside, Inside, Inside''

Illustrator

1996 ''Hush!: A Thai Lullaby'' by

1997 ''Cocoa Ice'' by Diana Appelbaum 2004 ''Blue Bowl Down'' by C. M. Millen 2004 ''Peek!: A Thai Hide-and-Seek'' by Minfong Ho 2005 ''Hop!'' by Phyllis Root 2005 ''Quack!'' by Phyllis Root 2005 ''Rata-Pata-Scata-Fata: A Caribbean Story'' by Phillis Gershator 2007 ''Sky Sweeper'' by Phillis Gershator 2007 ''Virginnie's Hat'' by Dori Chacaonas 2008 ''On the Farm'' by David Elliott

References

External links

She-Bear Gallery
{{DEFAULTSORT:Meade, Holly 1956 births American children's writers American illustrators People from Winchester, Massachusetts Rhode Island School of Design alumni 2013 deaths People from Sedgwick, Maine American children's book illustrators 20th-century American artists