Vera Williams
Vera Baker Williams ( born January 28, 1927 in Hollywood, California) is an American children's book author and illustrator. She is the winner of several prizes, such as the Regina Medal for 2008, one of the most since 1959, awarded by the Catholic Library Association Prize for Literature.
Life
Vera Baker Williams was the daughter of Albert and Rebecca Baker. She attended Music and Art High School in New York City, then she studied graphics at Black Mountain College in North Carolina, where she earned a Bachelor of Fine Arts. This was followed by studies at the Boston Museum School.
She married Paul Williams, with whom she had three children named Sarah, Jennifer and Mercedes, but left in 1970 divorced from him.
Williams has taught at several schools in the U.S. and Canada, which they co-founded in part. From 1980 to 1982 she taught at Goddard College in Vermont. She was a member of the executive committee of the War Resisters League, an organization that speaks out against violence. She participated in several protests and was thereby also arrested.
In 1975, she illustrated her first book, Hooray for Me! by Remy Charlip and Lilian Moore. Her first work as an author was It's a Gingerbread House: Bake It, Build It, Eat It, the first success came with Three Days on a River in a Red Canoe, for which she received the Parents' Choice Award for Illustration 1981. Best known it was replaced by Rosa trilogy, which consisted of the books A Chair for My Mother, Something Special for Me and Music, Music for Everyone. She was awarded several prizes.
Currently Baker Williams is working on any other book but devotes her time to their hobbies and grandchildren.
Works
- It's a Gingerbread House: Bake It, Build It, Eat It! Westport, CT, Greenwillow Press, 1978.
- The Great Water Mellow Birthday. Westport, CT, Greenwillow Press, 1980.
- Three Days on a River in a Red Canoe. Westport, CT, Greenwillow Press, 1981.
- A Chair for My Mother. Westport, CT, Greenwillow Press, 1981.
- Something Special for Me Westport, CT, Greenwillow Press, 1983.
- The Great Water Mellow Birthday. Westport, CT, Greenwillow Press, 1980.
- Music, Music for Everyone. Westport, CT, Greenwillow Press, 1984.
- Cheeries and Cherry Pits. Westport, CT, Greenwillow Press, 1986.
- My Mother, Leah and George Sand. Westport, CT, Greenwillow Press, 1986.
- " More More More, " Said the Baby: Three Love Stories. Westport, CT, Greenwillow Press, 1990.
- Scooter. Westport, CT, Greenwillow Press, 1993.
- Lucky song. Westport, CT, Greenwillow Press, 1997.
- What Amber Brave, Essie What Smart: The Story of Amber and Essie Told Here in Poems and Pictures. New York, Harper Collins, 2001.