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Myra Cohn Livingston 1926年8月17日

The grand-mère of contemporary children’s poetry 美國現代兒童詩教母奶奶

北市市圖外文童書區有幾個櫃位專門陳列童詩,經常會被忽略,其實這是個挖寶的好地方,不論像是《Here's a Little Poem》的合輯、各種主題詩集、或是詩人的專輯,常有一些知名的插畫家作畫。

Myra Cohn Livingston 在1961年創立了 SCCLCYP (The Southern California Council on Literature for Children and Young People 南加州兒童與青少年文學協會,現名為Children's Literature Council of Southern California),致力於閱讀的推廣。該會每年頒發 MYRA COHN LIVINGSTON AWARD 給兒詩詩人。

Myra Cohn Livingston 16歲時,優異的法國號演奏受到洛杉磯愛樂管弦樂團注意而邀請她加入,Myra Cohn 拒絕了,她有別的計畫,她想成為作家。

“Poetry, because it is succinct, because it humanizes, and because it carries within it the form and language of change, is of vital importance. Poetry comes in strange ways and never at the moment when one might think it should come.” – Myra Cohn Livingston, from Hopkins’s Pass the Poetry, Please!

Calendar

By Myra Cohn Livingston

January shivers,
February shines,
March blows off
the winter ice,
April makes the
mornings nice,
May is hopscotch lines.

June is
deep blue swimming,
Picnics are July,
August is
my birthday,
September whistles by.

October is
for roller skates,
November is
the fireplace,
December is
the best because
of sleds
and snow
and Santa Claus.



Ariane Dewey 1937年8月17日

「Whatever the subject, I want my readers to stretch their imaginations, to see with their minds’ eyes what happens between one picture and the next. I want to make them explore and smile.」

她和前夫 Jose Aruego 一個畫輪廓線條、一個填色,創作出60多本精彩的繪本,離婚後依然持續合作。但是他的創作變得更多元,現在包括 non-fiction 和以佛法有關的心靈書籍《Like That》