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What do you do when your favorite toy disappears, and you can't find it where you left it? What if your family is NO help at all? A determined little detective heads up the search, and discovers more than she ever expected!
00-01 Young Reader's Choice Award Program Masterlist
| ISBN-13: | 9780688177225 |
|---|---|
| Publisher: | HarperCollins |
| Publication date: | 08/08/2000 |
| Edition description: | Reprint |
| Pages: | 40 |
| Sales rank: | 385,702 |
| Product dimensions: | 9.25(w) x 11.00(h) x 0.00(d) |
| Lexile: | AD450L (what's this?) |
| Age Range: | 4 - 8 Years |
In His Own Words...
"I have been writing and drawing comic strips all my life, first as a six-year-old, when I'd try to draw like my heroes: Alex Raymond, who did Flash Gordon, E. C. Segar, who did Popeye, Milton Caniff, who did Terry and the Pirates. The newspaper strip back in the 1940s was a glorious thing to behold. Sunday pages were full-sized and colored broadsheets that created a universe that could swallow a boy whole.
"I was desperate to be a cartoonist. One of my heroes was Will Eisner, who did a weekly comic book supplement to the Sunday comics. One day I walked into his office and showed him my samples. He said they were lousy, but he hired me anyway. And I began my apprenticeship.
"Later I was drafted out of Eisner's office into the Korean War. Militarism, regimentation, and mindless authority combined to squeeze the boy cartoonist out of me and bring out the rebel. There was no format at the time to fit the work I raged and screamed to do, so I had to invent one. Cartoon satire that commented on the military, the bomb, the cold war, the hypocrisy of grown-ups, the mating habits of urban young men and women: These were my subjects. After four years of trying to break into print and getting nowhere, the Village Voice, the first alternative newspaper, offered to publish me. Only one catch: They couldn't pay me. What did I care?
"My weekly satirical strip, Sick Sick Sick, later renamed Feiffer, started appearing in late 1956. Two years later, Sick Sick Sick came out in book form and became a bestseller. The following years saw a string of cartoon collections, syndication, stage and screen adaptations of the cartoon. One, Munro, won an Academy Award.
"This was heady stuff, taking me miles beyond my boyhood dreams. The only thing that got in the way of my enjoying it was the real world: the Cuban missile crisis, the assassination of President Kennedy, the Vietnam War, the civil rights revolution. The country was coming unglued, and my weekly cartoons didn't seem to be an adequate way of handling it. So I started writing plays: Little Murders, The White House Murder Case, Carnal Knowledge, Grown Ups. All the themes of my comic strips expanded theatrically and, later, cinematically to give me the time and space I needed to explain the times to myself and to my audience.
"I grew older. I had a family and, late in life, a very young family. I started thinking, as old guys will, about what I wanted these children to read, to learn. I read them E. B. White and Beverly Cleary and Roald Dahl, and, one day, I thought, Hey, I can do this."
"Writing for young readers connects me professionally to a part of myself that I didn't know how to let out until I was sixty: that kid who lived a life of innocence, mixed with confusion and consternation, disappointment and dopey humor. And who drew comic strips and needed friends—and found them—in cartoons and children's books that told him what the grown-ups in his life had left out. That's what reading did for me when I was a kid. Now I try to return the favor."
Jules Feiffer has won a number of prizes for his cartoons, plays, and screenplays, including the Pulitzer Prize for editorial cartooning. His books for children include The Man in the Ceiling; A Barrel of Laughs, A Vale of Tears; I Lost My Bear; Bark, George; and Meanwhile... He lives in Richfield Springs, New York.
In His Own Words...
"I have been writing and drawing comic strips all my life, first as a six-year-old, when I'd try to draw like my heroes: Alex Raymond, who did Flash Gordon, E. C. Segar, who did Popeye, Milton Caniff, who did Terry and the Pirates. The newspaper strip back in the 1940s was a glorious thing to behold. Sunday pages were full-sized and colored broadsheets that created a universe that could swallow a boy whole.
"I was desperate to be a cartoonist. One of my heroes was Will Eisner, who did a weekly comic book supplement to the Sunday comics. One day I walked into his office and showed him my samples. He said they were lousy, but he hired me anyway. And I began my apprenticeship.
"Later I was drafted out of Eisner's office into the Korean War. Militarism, regimentation, and mindless authority combined to squeeze the boy cartoonist out of me and bring out the rebel. There was no format at the time to fit the work I raged and screamed to do, so I had to invent one. Cartoon satire that commented on the military, the bomb, the cold war, the hypocrisy of grown-ups, the mating habits of urban young men and women: These were my subjects. After four years of trying to break into print and getting nowhere, the Village Voice, the first alternative newspaper, offered to publish me. Only one catch: They couldn't pay me. What did I care?
"My weekly satirical strip, Sick Sick Sick, later renamed Feiffer, started appearing in late 1956. Two years later, Sick Sick Sick came out in book form and became a bestseller. The following years saw a string of cartoon collections, syndication, stage and screen adaptations of the cartoon. One, Munro, won an Academy Award.
"This was heady stuff, taking me miles beyond my boyhood dreams. The only thing that got in the way of my enjoying it was the real world: the Cuban missile crisis, the assassination of President Kennedy, the Vietnam War, the civil rights revolution. The country was coming unglued, and my weekly cartoons didn't seem to be an adequate way of handling it. So I started writing plays: Little Murders, The White House Murder Case, Carnal Knowledge, Grown Ups. All the themes of my comic strips expanded theatrically and, later, cinematically to give me the time and space I needed to explain the times to myself and to my audience.
"I grew older. I had a family and, late in life, a very young family. I started thinking, as old guys will, about what I wanted these children to read, to learn. I read them E. B. White and Beverly Cleary and Roald Dahl, and, one day, I thought, Hey, I can do this."
"Writing for young readers connects me professionally to a part of myself that I didn't know how to let out until I was sixty: that kid who lived a life of innocence, mixed with confusion and consternation, disappointment and dopey humor. And who drew comic strips and needed friends—and found them—in cartoons and children's books that told him what the grown-ups in his life had left out. That's what reading did for me when I was a kid. Now I try to return the favor."
Hometown:
New York, New YorkDate of Birth:
January 26, 1929Place of Birth:
New York, New YorkEducation:
The Pratt Institute, 1951Before the live bn.com chat, Jules Feiffer agreed to answer some of our questions:Q: What prompted you to start a new career as a children's book author?
A: Having young kids at an old age. Being 60 and a father again tends to focus your attention.
Q: What was it like winning an Academy Award?
A: Not as exciting as winning the Pulitzer Prize, which I won for editorial cartooning in 1986, and seemed less of a fluke or dumb luck.
Q: Do you miss doing a syndicated cartoon strip? Will we see "Feiffer" again?
A: I am still doing a syndicated strip, the very same one I have been doing for over 41 years. It's not in the Voice anymore, but it's in L.A., San Francisco, Chicago, Philadelphia, etc. I also appear monthly as an op-ed cartoonist in The New York Times.
Q: You have won a Pulitzer Prize and an Academy Award, been elected to the American Academy of Arts and Letters -- of all your numerous accomplishments, is there any one feat that you hold above others? Why?
A: The one feat I hold above all others is that I've managed to get away with doing the work I loved, by and large, while avoiding the work I loathed or felt indifferent to -- most of the time -- these last 41 years.
Q: Are there any new artists or cartoonists that you think will be making a name for themselves in the near future?
A: Chris Ware and Ben Katchor are already established on the alternative scene but are bound to get better known.
"It's not under the bed,
or on the chair,
or beneath the couch,
or behind the curtains.
It's Gone!"
What do you do when your best toy disappears, and you can't find it where you were playing with it last, and your family is no help at all? Mom's too busy...Dad's reading...and Sister's grumpy. But when a spunky little detective strikes out on her own to find her favorite stuffed toy, she discovers much more than anyone ever expected! Pulitzer Prize-winning editorial cartoonist Jules Feiffer has created an irresistible young heroine in his latest picture book, I Lost My Bear.
With a simple text, lots of humor, and bold, expressive pictures, I Love My Bear is a playful salute to a girl who refuses to give up.
Losing a beloved stuffed animal can be upsetting for kids. Let’s not forget about the impact on parents and the countless hours we’ve all spent looking under the bed and behind pillows. A stuffed animal that has been with your child for years is a token of childhood and a cornerstone to their comfort and […]
