Marcia Joan Brown (1918 – 2015)
Marcia Browne was an American writer and illustrator and one of the great names of American picture book literature, publishing in excess of 30 children's books. She is only one of two three-times winner of the Caldecott Medal from the American Library Association, as well as six Caldecott Honors as an illustrator, recognizing the year's best U.S. picture book illustration, and the ALA's Laura Ingels Wilder Children's Literature Legacy Award in 1992 for her career contribution to children's literature. Marcia Brown was also nominated twice for the Hans Christian Andersen Award, colloquially known as the Nobel Prize for illustration, representing the USA. Her books have been published world-wide with editions in Afrikaans, German, Japanese, Spanish, and Xhosa-Bantu editions.
Marcia Brown was born on July 13, 1918, in Rochester, New York. She enrolled in the New York State College for Teachers, predecessor to the University at Albany. She taught at Cornwall High School in Cornwall, New York. Brown left teaching to work in the New York Public Library's Central Children's Room. Her first book was The Little Carousel, a 32-page picture book that she both wrote and illustrated, published by Scribner's in 1946. She lived with her companion Janet Loranger, who was also her editor. Brown died on April 28, 2015, in Laguna Hills, California; she was 96 years old.
For her contribution as a children's illustrator, Brown was U.S. nominee in both 1966 and 1976 for the biennial, international Hans Christian Andersen Award, the highest international recognition available to creators of children's books. She received the 1977 Regina Medal from the Catholic Libraries Association for "continued, distinguished contribution to children's literature without regard to the nature of the contribution and the 1992 Children's Literature Legacy Award from the American Library Association for "substantial and lasting contributions to children's literature"; it was then conferred every three years. She received the Distinguished Alumni Award from the SUNY Albany Alumni Association (1969), the Distinguished Service to Children's Literature Award from the University of Southern Mississippi (1972), and the Regina Medal from the Catholic Library Association for service to children's literature (1977).
