Azarian, Mary 1940–

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Azarian, Mary 1940–

Personal

Born December 8, 1940, in Washington, DC; daughter of L.G. (self-employed) and Eleanor (self-employed; maiden name, Hatch) Schneider; married Tomas Azarian (a musician), July 24, 1962; children: Ethan, Jesse, Timothy. Education: Smith College, B.A., 1963. Hobbies and other interests: Gardening, tournament bridge.

Addresses

Home—Farmhouse Press, 258 Gray Rd., Plainfield, VT 05667. E-mail—[email protected].

Career

Children's book author and illustrator. One-room school teacher in Walden, VT, 1963–67; Farmhouse Press, Plainfield, VT, founder; freelance printmaker and illustrator, beginning 1967.

Awards, Honors

Parent's Choice Award for Illustration, 1983, for The Tale of John Barleycorn; Caldecott Medal, Association for Library Service to Children, 1999, Notable Children's Book designation, American Library Association, Booklist Editor's Choice designation, Bulletin of the Center for Children's Books Blue Ribbon designation, and Outstanding Science Trade Book for Children citation, National Science Teachers Association/Children's Book Council, all 1999, all for Snowflake Bentley.

Writings

SELF-ILLUSTRATED

A Farmer's Alphabet (for children), David Godine (Boston, MA), 1981.

The Tale of John Barleycorn; or, From Barley to Beer: A Traditional English Ballad (for children), David Godine (Boston, MA), 1982.

Mary Azarian Address Book, David Godine (Boston, MA), 1983.

A Gardener's Alphabet (for children), Houghton Mifflin (Boston, MA), 2000.

ILLUSTRATOR

Marilyn Kluger, The Wild Flavor, Coward (New York, NY), 1973.

John Gardner, The Art of Living, and Other Stories, Knopf (New York, NY), 1981.

Adelma Grenier Simmons, The Caprilands Kitchen Book, Caprilands Press, 1981.

Lorraine Lee, The Magic Dulcimer, Yellow Moon, 1983.

Donald Hall, The Man Who Lived Alone, David Godine (Boston, MA), 1984.

Martin Steingesser, The Wildman: A Short Fable, Romulus Editions, Coyote Love Press, 1985.

Marilyn Kluger, Country Kitchens Remembered, W. Clement Stone, PMA Communications, 1986.

John Hildebidle, Stubbornness, New Myths, 1986.

Wolfgang Mieder, Talk Less and Say More, New England Press, 1986.

James Hayford, Gridley Firing, New England Press, 1987.

Lisa Carlson, Caring for Your Own Dead, Upper Access, 1987.

Wolfgang Mieder, As Sweet as Apple Cider, New England Press, 1988.

George Shannon, Sea Gifts, David Godine (Boston, MA), 1989.

Wolfgang Mieder, Not by Bread Alone, New England Press, 1990.

Wolfgang Mieder, Salty Wisdom, New England Press, 1990.

Lorraine L. Hammond, Barley Break, Yellow Moon, 1992.

Kate Barnes, Where the Deer Were, David Godine (Boston, MA), 1994.

C.M. Millen, A Symphony for the Sheep, Houghton Mifflin (Boston, MA), 1996.

Carol P. Saul, Barn Cat: A Counting Book, Little, Brown (Boston, MA), 1998.

Jacqueline Briggs Martin, Snowflake Bentley, Houghton Mifflin (Boston, MA), 1998.

Johanna Hurwitz, Faraway Summer, Morrow (New York, NY), 1998.

Lise Lunge-Larsen, The Race of the Birkebeiners, Houghton Mifflin (Boston, MA), 2001.

Penny Pollock, When the Moon Is Full, Little, Brown (Boston, MA), 2001.

Natalie Kinsey-Warnock, From Dawn till Dusk, Houghton Mifflin (Boston, MA), 2002.

Julie Dunlap and Marybeth Lorbiecki, Louisa May and Mr. Thoreau's Flute, Dial (New York, NY), 2002.

Leslie Connor, Miss Bridie Chose a Shovel, Houghton Mifflin (Boston, MA), 2004.

Natalie Kinsey-Warnock, A Christmas like Helen's, Houghton Mifflin (Boston, MA), 2004.

Leda Schubert, Here Comes Darrell, Houghton Mifflin (Boston, MA), 2005.

Gary Schmidt and Susan M. Felch, editors, Spring: A Spiritual Biography of the Season, SkyLight Paths Publishing (Woodstock, VT), 2006.

Johanna Hurwitz, The Unsigned Valentine, and Other Events in the Life of Emma Meade, HarperCollins (New York, NY), 2006.

Sidelights

Caldecott Award-winning printmaker and illustrator Mary Azarian got her start in children's book illustration after she was commissioned by the Vermont Board of Education to design and illustrate a children's alphabet book. Having established a small woodcut business in her Vermont home in the 1960s, Azarian's work was familiar to many in New England; with publication of A Farmer's Alphabet, she gained national attention. Her book was heralded by Village Voice critic Janice Prindle as the "sine qua non of any preschooler's library," while John Cech noted in the Washington Post Book World that Azarian's woodcuts are "bold," and have the "grainy, 'primitive' texture of old barn board." "Azarian eschews the merely cute or quaint, creating a loving memorial to a way of life," noted School Library Journal writer Patricia Dooley, expressing the inspiration that has guided much of Azarian's more recent work, including her award-winning work for Jacqueline Briggs Martin's 1999 picture book Snowflake Bentley. In a profile for the National Center for Children's Illustrated Literature Web site, Leonard S. Marcus noted that the illustrator's "boldly delineated illustration art" is inspired by Azarian's "love of nature, devotion to craft, and a zest for storytelling."

Azarian's illustration career was inspired as much by her work as a teacher as it was by her training as an artist. Moving to Vermont after graduating from Smith College and marrying because she and her husband wanted to raise their children in a rural setting, she eventually worked as a teacher in a one-room school-house. Leaving teaching after the birth of her second child, Azarian turned to art, where her former studies in printmaking and etching under artist Leonard Baskin helped her in founding Farmhouse Press. Creating designs that appealed to people living in her region of New England, she printed her woodcuts using a nineteenth-century Vandercook handpress and then colored each print by hand. As book illustration began to supplemented her work as a printmaker, Azarian has welcomed the opportunity to experiment with a variety of other techniques and subject matters.

In The Tale of John Barleycorn; or, From Barley to Beer: A Traditional English Ballad Azarian adapts Scottish poet Robert Burns's humorous ballad in which the transformation of grain into beer parallels the life of John Barleycorn, beginning with a burial (of the seed in the ground), then growing tall (in the field), followed by a cruel death (harvesting and grinding the barley grain for brewing into beer). Azarian's detailed woodcuts for The Tale of John Barleycorn captured much critical attention. The book also contains musical notations for singing the text, and a recipe for making beer at home. "The wry humor of the ballad … loses none of its yeasty flavor through time," remarked Anne McKeithen in School Library Journal, adding that "artisti-cally the book is a success in every way." "This is woodcut-making of a high order," noted a critic for Kirkus Reviews who concluded that, "as an example of the bookmaking art," The Tale of John Barleycorn is "an outright winner."

Snowflake Bentley is the biography of a nineteenthcentury Vermont man who became the first person to photograph a snowflake. Martin's text called for illustrations celebrating a rural Vermont past, and Azarian's previous work in picture books made her the perfect choice. "The bold lines that Azarian achieves through woodcuts give these images the look of folkart," noted Mark I. West in Five Owls, adding that the illustrator's "subtle use of watercolors adds a level of sophistication. She is especially adept at capturing the wintry interplay of blue and white." When Snowflake Bentley was awarded the Caldecott Medal for illustration in 1999, it was a surprise to Azarian as well as many others; the win marked the first time the award was bestowed upon a work of nonfiction.

Other books illustrated by Azarian include Carol P. Saul's Barn Cat: A Counting Book, which "gives the tried-and-true preschool favorites—animals and counting—a fresh new landscape," according to a contributor to Kirkus Reviews. Paul's rhyming text teases the imagination of young audiences by repeatedly asking what the cat could be looking for when one grasshopper, two crickets, three butterflies, and so on, pass within reach of its claws. Reviewers noted Azarian's expressive portrayal of the cat, which adds to the tension of the story until it is revealed that what the cat is looking for is the saucer of milk being poured for her in the kitchen. "Azarian's woodcut prints … are outstanding," exclaimed Lauren Peterson in Booklist, while a reviewer for Kirkus Reviews intoned that the illustrator's "friendly woodcuts, hand-colored in country-fresh hues, give a novel meaning to summer on the farm."

From counting, Azarian moves to letters with A Gardener's Alphabet, where her wideranging subject matter allows her to range among the wealth of animal-, plant-, and insect-related words, pairing the problematic "X" with "Xeriscaping" and "Z" with the ubiquitous "Zucchini." The book's "masterful woodcuts brim with life and activity," noted a Publishers Weekly reviewer, adding that "Azarian's carefully etched scenes will delight green thumbs of any age."

Other books featuring Azarian's unique illustration include Lise Lunge-Larsen's retelling of a thirteenth-century Norwegian legend about saving a young prince's claim to the throne in The Race of the Birkbeiners; Penny Pollock's When the Moon Is Full: A Lunar Year, which includes the history of the names given to different phases of the moon by Native Americans; and Louisa May and Mr. Thoreau's Flute, a story by Marybeth Lorbiecki and Julie Dunlap that is based on the childhood of noted American author Louisa May Alcott. "Expertly rendered in rich colors," according to School Library Journal reviewer Ann Chapman Callaghan, Azarian's woodcuts for The Race of the Birkbeiners "truly make this book stand out." In Louisa May and Mr. Thoreau her use of "crisply distinct patterns" on clothing, plants, and water "create[s] a harmonic interplay of textures," in the opinion of a Kirkus Reviews contributor, while Horn Book reviewer Mary M. Burns noted that the folk-art-inspired wood cuts "emphasize the country setting, and the evocation of texture is remarkable." Azarian's "exquisite designs … pull readers in and create a dramatic, almost three-dimensional effects," added Lee Bock in School Library Journal, praising the "historically accurate" tale of Alcott's meeting with her family's neighbor, writer Henry David Thoreau.

"My favorite moments in illustrating a book come when I am able to suspend conscious thought and let my hands and eyes work, guided by the well of creativity that nourishes us all," Azarian was quoted as saying in her National Center for Children's Illustrated Literature Web site profile. "No matter what you may choose to do in life, if you can find that magic moment, you will be happy in your work."

Biographical and Critical Sources

BOOKS

Hart, Lilias MacBean, The Four Seasons of Mary Azarian, David Godine (Boston, MA), 2000.

PERIODICALS

Booklist, September 15, 1998, Lauren Peterson, review of Barn Cat: A Counting Book; June 1, 1999, interview with Azarian, p. 1834; April 15, 2000, Hazel Rochman, review of A Gardener's Alphabet, p. 1547; November 1, 2001, Lauren Peterson, review of When the Moon Is Full: A Lunar Year, p. 480.

Bulletin of the Center for Children's Books, October, 1981, review of A Farmer's Alphabet, p. 21.

Five Owls, March-April, 1999, Mark I. West, review of Snowflake Bentley, p. 81.

Horn Book, June, 1983, p. 287; July, 1999, Mary Azarian, transcript of Caldecott Medal acceptance speech, p. 423; September-October, 2002, Mary M. Burns, review of Louisa May and Mr. Thoreau's Flute, p. 549.

Kirkus Reviews, December 15, 1982, review of The Tale of John Barleycorn; or, From Barley to Beer: A Traditional English Ballad, p. 1335; July 1, 1998, review of Barn Cat; August 1, 2002, review of Louisa May and Mr. Thoreau's Flute, p. 1126; September 1, 2002, review of From Dawn till Dusk, p. 1312.

Newsweek, December 7, 1981, review of A Farmer's Alphabet, p. 98.

New York Times Book Review, December 1, 1985, p. 39.

Publishers Weekly, April 10, 2000, review of A Gardener's Alphabet, p. 98; October 8, 2001, review of When the Moon Is Full, p. 63.

School Library Journal, September, 1981, Patricia Dooley, review of A Farmer's Alphabet, p. 102; April, 1983, Anne McKeithen, review of The Tale of John Barleycorn, p. 97; September, 2001, Lisa Gangemi Krapp, review of When the Moon Is Full, p. 220, and Anne Chapman Callaghan, review of The Race of the Birkbeiners, p. 217; October, 2002, Lee Bock, review of Louisa May and Mr. Thoreau's Flute, p. 103, and Margaret Bush, review of From Dawn till Dusk, p. 115.

Village Voice, December 9, 1981, Janice Prindle, review of A Farmer's Alphabet, p. 56.

Washington Post Book World, May 10, 1981, John Cech, review of A Farmer's Alphabet, p. 13.