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AUGUST 2005

Karen B. Winnick

Interview with Karen Winnick:
“Books Implore Us To Go After Our Dreams”

By Joan Baum, Ph.D.

Though she always wanted to bring toge ther her training and talent in art and writing, the publication of Mr. Lincoln’s Whiskers (1996), which she composed and illustrated, proved to Karen B. Winnick that she could make her mark in the crowded world of children’s literature by pursuing her love of history. Mr. Lincoln’s Whiskers tells the story of 11-year-old Grace Bedell who, much to the surprise and dubious expectations of everyone around her about getting a reply, writes to the then still shorn Lincoln in October 1860 about growing a beard. The tale is historically grounded, imaginatively encapsulated in a fictional universe, and enhanced with flat color oil painting that, like the text itself, remains faithful to the style of the time. In the ensuing decade, Ms. Winnick has continued to write picture books for children, mainly ages 4-9, solidifying her reputation as an author/illustrator who understands the need for getting children to start and stay with reading. If the Potter books achieve that goal, she’s all for them, she says, but, of course, she hopes her own contributions will succeed in that regard.

It’s not unusual for children’s books authors to supply their own artwork, but it’s not that common to find such authors focusing on American history. Winnick fans certainly know about her passion for animals who always figure in her books—she herself has six dogs, not to mention other pets, and a book she’s working on now has to do with elephant and the year 1806—but adult readers may not be aware of the extent of research that goes into crafting her narratives. Sybil’s Night Ride, for example, follows young Sybil Ludington, who braved the night elements to alert her colonial neighbors about oncoming British troops, and Cassie’s Sweet Berry Pie<, A Civil War Story, recreates a story about an ingenious young girl’s use of blackberries to fool Yankee soldiers bearing down upon her home. Both tales of daring-do feature a young heroine who faces fearful consequences alone. Though families then were large, youngsters were often left on their own.

Ms. Winnick admirably attends to period details: what people wore, how they spoke (no contractions in the 1700s), what they ate, what they did (tanning, for instance.) Lovely old maps grace the endpapers of these books, and adults themselves will likely be as instructed and entertained as children. History matters: “What happened then has an impact on our lives today,” she points out. Not that parents of girls today may not be particularly pleased that champions of courage in Winnick World are heroines. Though herself the mother of three boys, Karen Winnick asks rhetorically, how many classic children’s books featured girls? How many emphasized how animals “teach us so much about ourselves?”

The multi-talented Ms. Winnick traces her love of reading, art, writing, history, children and animals to her parents. She serves on the Board of Commissioners for the Los Angeles Zoo, among numerous other institutions, studied art at Syracuse University, painting and education at NYU (she taught art history to elementary school children for 9 years), and design at the School of Visual Arts. Later, at UCLA, she added poetry to her store of creative talents, and theatre, producing Kindertransport, a play about children in Germany who were sent by train to England during the War. It’s a subject that she mulls over for a children’s picture book but she is savvy enough to want to do something special in this much-visited area. Meanwhile, she continues to write and, once a week, to visit grades K-5, with the aim of “demystifying” the process of writing and illustrating children’s books and encouraging youngsters to strike out early on their own. What do the kids ask her? Well, one—but only one—wanted to know if she ever met Abraham Lincoln (in her mind’s eye, of course!)#

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