K-State professor helps bring new book to the public

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Source: Philip Nel, 785-532-2165, philnel@k-state.edu
http://www.mediarelations.k-state.edu/WEB/News/MediaGuide/pnelbio.html
News release prepared by: Michelle Hall, 785-532-6415

Monday, October 31, 2005

K-STATE PROFESSOR HELPS BRING NEW BOOK FROM CHILDREN'S AUTHOR/ILLUSTRATOR CROCKETT JOHNSON TO THE PUBLIC

MANHATTAN -- Philip Nel had always wondered why a book by Crockett Johnson, the celebrated children's author and illustrator, was illustrated by someone with a completely different style. It just didn't make sense. Johnson had illustrated all of his other books in his signature "cartoon minimalist" style.

Nel, associate professor of English at Kansas State University, found the answer in 2000 at the Smithsonian Institution while researching Johnson for a biography he planned to write. There, in Johnson's papers, were the illustrations the author had created for the book.

"When I found Johnson's original sketches, I thought, 'I wonder if we can bring this book out as Johnson might have wanted it to be published,'" Nel said. Five years later, Nel has his wish. "Magic Beach," first published as "Castles in the Sand" in 1965 with different illustrations, will be in bookstores in early November.

The book features an afterword by Nel and an appreciation by Maurice Sendak, creator of the children's classic, "Where the Wild Things Are." Johnson and his wife, Ruth Krauss, launched Sendak's career. In the 1950s, Sendak used to spend weekends at the couple's house, working on Krauss' books. Krauss' most famous children's books include "The Carrot Seed," illustrated by Johnson, and "A Hole is to Dig," the first of nine of her books illustrated by Sendak. Johnson is best known as the author-illustrator of the seven-book "Harold and the Purple Crayon" series, which is marking its 50th anniversary this year.

After discovering the drawings, Nel got in touch with Stephen Roxburgh, president of Front Street, an independent publisher of award-winning children's picture books. Nel also mentioned how important Johnson and Krauss were to Sendak. Roxburgh got in touch with Sendak, who fell in love with the book and agreed to write the appreciation. Roxburgh received permission from the estate of Krauss, obtained scans of the illustrations from the Smithsonian and "here we are with a new Crockett Johnson book," Nel said. "Magic Beach" is the first new book written and illustrated by Johnson in 40 years and is being published in celebration of the centennial of Johnson's birth.

"The story is beautiful, poetic and one of Johnson's most innovative books," Nel said of "Magic Beach." "He would, of course, have refined his sketches, but his sketches are quite precise -- they convey a clear sense of what he had in mind." "Magic Beach" is the story of a boy and a girl who discover the power of words: when the tide washes over the words they have drawn in the sand, the words become real.

When Johnson was shopping around the idea of the "Magic Beach" book in 1965, editors thought it too serious and difficult for children, Nel writes in his afterword.

"But he did not give up on 'Magic Beach,'" Nel writes. "Considering it 'far and away the best small thing I have done,' he sent it to half a dozen other publishers, all of whom 'enthusiastically...turned down' the book." A couple of years later, Holt, Rinehart and Winston accepted the manuscript but not the illustrations. Nel said perhaps the editors felt such an abstract story needed more concrete pictures.

"'Magic Beach' offers Crockett Johnson's most developed examination of the boundary between real and imaginary worlds," Nel writes. "It is not so much a departure from his earlier work as it is a more finely tuned, carefully nuanced exploration of his favorite theme: the powers and limits of the imagination."

Nel has now expanded his planned biography on Johnson into a double biography of both Johnson and Krauss. He expects to finish it in 2007.

He also maintains a Web site on Johnson's work: http://www.k-state.edu/english/nelp/purple/

Nel is the author of "J.K. Rowling's Harry Potter Novels: A Reader's Guide" and "Dr. Seuss: American Icon." His "The Annotated Cat in the Hat" will be published by Random House in 2007.