Marie Hall Ets (December 16, 1895 in Milwaukee, Wisconsin – January 17, 1984 in

Inverness, Florida Inverness is a city in Citrus County, Florida, United States. As of the 2020 census,the population was 7,543. It is the county seat of Citrus County and is home to the Citrus County Courthouse and near the Flying Eagle Preserve. Geography In ...

) was an

American American(s) may refer to: * American, something of, from, or related to the United States of America, commonly known as the "United States" or "America" ** Americans, citizens and nationals of the United States of America ** American ancestry, pe ...

writer and illustrator who is best known for children's picture books. She attended Lawrence College, and in 1918, Ets journeyed to Chicago where she became a social worker at the Chicago Commons, a settlement house on the northwest side of the city. There she met Ines Cassettari, an immigrant from Italy who worked at the settlement. Ets transcribed Cassettari's autobiography, and the book was later published as '' Rosa: The Life of an Italian Immigrant''. In 1960 Ets won the annual Caldecott Medal for her illustrations of ''Nine Days to Christmas'', whose text she wrote with Aurora Labastida. She died in 1984. ''Just Me'' and ''In the Forest'' are both Caldecott Honor books. The black-and-white charcoal illustrations in ''Just Me'' "almost take on the appearance of woodcuts" and are similar in style to the illustrations in ''In the Forest''. Constantine Georgiou comments in ''Children and Their Literature'' that Ets' "picture stories and easy-to-read books" (along with those of

Maurice Sendak Maurice Bernard Sendak (; June 10, 1928 – May 8, 2012) was an American author and illustrator of children's books. He became most widely known for his book ''Where the Wild Things Are'', first published in 1963.Turan, Kenneth (October 16, 200 ...

) "are filled with endearing and quaint human touches, putting them at precisely the right angle to life in early childhood." ''Play With Me'', says Georgiou, is "a tender little tale, delicately illustrated in fragile pastels that echo the quiet mood of the story."Georgiou (1969), p. 100.

Works

* ''Mister Penny'' ( Viking Press, 1935) * ''The Story of a Baby'', 1939 * ''

In the Forest ''In the Forest'' is a 2002 novel by Irish novelist Edna O'Brien. The novel is set in Ireland, and is based on a triple homicide Homicide occurs when a person kills another person. A homicide requires only a volitional act or omission ...

'', 1944 ‡ * ''My Dog Rinty'', 1946, by Ellen Terry * ''Oley, the Sea monster'', 1947 * ''Little Old Automobile'', 1948 * ''Mr. T. W. Anthony Woo: the story of a cat and a dog and a mouse'', 1951 ‡ * ''Beasts and Nonsense'', 1952 * ''Another Day'', 1953 * ''Play With Me'', 1955 ‡ * ''Mister Penny's Race Horse'', 1956 ‡ *''Cow's Party'', 1958 * ''

Nine Days to Christmas ''Nine Days to Christmas'' is a book by Marie Hall Ets and Aurora Labastida. Released by Viking Press, it was the recipient of the Caldecott Medal for illustration in 1960.American Library AssociationCaldecott Medal Winners, 1938 - Present. U ...

' (Viking, 1959), text by Ets and Aurora Labastida ‡ * ''Mister Penny's Circus'', 1961 * ''Gilberto and the Wind'', 1963 * ''Automobiles for Mice'', 1964 * ''Just Me'', 1965 ‡ * ''Bad Boy, Good Boy'', 1967 * ''Talking Without Words: I Can. Can You?'', 1968 * '' Rosa, the Life of an Italian Immigrant'' (transcribed by Ets), 1970 * ''Elephant in a Well'', 1972 * ''Jay Bird'', 1974 ‡ As an illustrator Ets won the annual Caldecott Medal in 1960 for ''Nine Days to Christmas'' and she was one of the runners-up five times from 1945 to 1966 (exceeded only by

)."Caldecott Medal & Honor Books, 1938–Present"
Association for Library Service to Children. American Library Association. Retrieved 2013-05-05. Since 1971 the runners-up are called

Caldecott Honor Books 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 Servi ...

, but some runners-up had been identified annually and all those runners-up were retroactively named Caldecott Honor Books. The number of Honors or runners-up had always been one to five, and it had been two to four since 1994, until five were named in 2013 and six in 2015. The Honor Books must be a subset of the runners-up on the final ballot, either the leading runners-up on that ballot or the leaders on one further ballot that excludes the winner.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Ets, Marie 1895 births 1984 deaths American children's writers American women illustrators Caldecott Medal winners American children's book illustrators Writers from Wisconsin 20th-century American women artists