Brown, Don 1949–

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Brown, Don 1949–

Personal

Born 1949; married; children: two daughters. Education: Earned degree in history. Hobbies and other interests: Reading history.

Addresses

Home—Merrick, NY. Agent—c/o Author Mail, Hough-ton Mifflin, 222 Berkeley St., Boston, MA 02116-3764. E-mail—[email protected].

Career

Author and illustrator. Worked variously as a movie theatre manager, clam digger, waiter, cook, and bartender. Freelance illustrator and animator, beginning c. 1980.

Awards, Honors

Notable Trade Book in the Field of Social Studies designation, National Council of the Social Studies (NCSS)/Children's Book Council (CBC), 1993, for Ruth Law Thrills a Nation, and 1999, for Rare Treasure; Giverny Book Award for Best Children's Science Picture Book, Louisiana State University, 2002, for Rare Treasure.

Writings

SELF-ILLUSTRATED

Ruth Law Thrills a Nation, Ticknor & Fields (New York, NY), 1993.

Alice Ramsey's Grand Adventure, Houghton Mifflin (Boston, MA), 1997.

One Giant Leap: The Story of Neil Armstrong, Houghton Mifflin (Boston, MA), 1998.

Rare Treasure: Mary Anning and Her Remarkable Discoveries, Houghton Mifflin (Boston, MA), 1999.

Uncommon Traveler: Mary Kingsley in Africa, Houghton Mifflin (Boston, MA), 2000.

A Voice from the Wilderness: The Story of Anna Howard Shaw, Houghton Mifflin (Boston, MA), 2001.

Across a Dark and Wild Sea, Roaring Book Press (Brook-field, CT), 2002.

Far Beyond the Garden Gate: Alexandra David-Neel's Journey to Lhasa, Houghton Mifflin (Boston, MA), 2002.

Mack Made Movies, Roaring Brook Press (New Milford, CT), 2003.

Our Time on the River, Houghton Mifflin (Boston, MA), 2003.

American Boy: The Adventures of Mark Twain, Houghton Mifflin (Boston, MA), 2003.

Kid Blink Beats the World, Roaring Book Press (Brook-field, CT), 2004.

Odd Boy Out: Young Albert Einstein, Houghton Mifflin (Boston, MA), 2004.

(Adaptor) Beryl Markham, The Good Lion, Houghton Mif-flin (Boston, MA), 2005.

Bright Path: Young Jim Thorpe, Roaring Brook Press (New Milford, CT), 2006.

The Notorious Izzy Fink, Roaring Brook Press (New Mil-ford, CT), 2006.

Sidelights

Don Brown was inspired to begin his career as a children's book author and illustrator after scanning library shelves in search of books for his two young daughters. A freelance illustrator and history buff, Brown hoped to find books telling inspiring stories about the contribution of women at important moments in history. When he could find none, he decided to write one himself. His first book, Ruth Law Thrills a Nation, was published in 1993, and began a career that has included award-winning texts about women explorers such as Alice Ramsey, Mary Kingsley, and Mary Anning as well as inspiring men such as Neil Armstrong and Albert Einstein. Praising Brown's easy-to-read biographies in a Bulletin of the Center for Children's Books online appraisal, Elizabeth Bush noted that the author/illustrator "doesn't waste words in unnecessary adulation, but lays out the journeys and explorations in the plainest terms," while his nostalgia-tinged watercolor-and-ink illustrations "speak eloquently." In praise of American Boy: The Adventures of Mark Twain, Wendy Lukehart wrote in School Library Journal of Brown's "understated humor and muted watercolors," which he applies "to larger-than-live personalities," while Nina Lindsay noted in the same periodical that in his texts the author "gives readers just enough detail without making his story too long."

The first of several woman-centered biographies, Ruth Law Thrills a Nation focuses on the Utah-born aviatrix who in November of 1916 set the U.S. nonstop crosscountry record for men and women, as well as the women's world nonstop cross-country record in a flight from Chicago to New York. During World War I she offered to fly for the U.S. Army but was turned down; due to Law's tenacity, however, she eventually was appointed a non-commissioned officer and flew recruiting assignments. Also focusing on a woman who recorded a world's first, Rare Treasure: Mary Anning and Her Remarkable Discoveries recounts the life story of a woman who, after leaving school at age eleven in 1810, joined her father and began collecting fossils on the beach near her home in Dorset, England. Assembling one of the largest fossil collections in the world during her lifetime, Anning now is considered the world's first woman paleontologist. Brown's well-researched version of Anning's life was cited by a Giverny Book Award Web site contributor as "a text that teaches basic pale-ontological principles in such a simple and seamless way that you think you are merely reading an engaging children's story—which, of course, you are!"

Brown continues his focus on intrepid women in books such as Alice Ramsey's Grand Adventure, Far beyond the Garden Gate: Alexandra David-Neel's Journey to Lhasa, and Uncommon Traveler: Mary Kingsley in Africa. Praised for its "wonderful prose and deft water-colors" by a Publishers Weekly reviewer, Alice Ramsey's Grand Adventure takes readers on the first cross-the-U.S. auto trip with a woman driver at the wheel. Leaving New York City on June 9, 1909, Ramsey took fifty-nine days to drive to San Francisco, her progress limited by the car's top speed of just over forty miles per hour and the fact that interstate highways were as yet undreamed of. Brown "captures all the beauty, humor, danger and wonder of Ramsay's achievement," the Publishers Weekly reviewer added, while in Horn Book Mary M. Burns cited the author's text for reflecting its subject's "fortitude and ingenuity" and Brown's "deftly executed watercolors" for "effectively capturing nuances of characters and situations."

Featuring another adventurous woman, Far beyond the Garden Gate follows the travels of Alexandra David-Neel, a Frenchwoman who began a career as an opera singer before leaving the stage and her husband in 1911 to follow her passion for Asia and pursue the study of Buddhism. After a year spent learning Tibetan and joined by Tibetan teen Yongden, David-Neel spent thirteen years journeying throughout Asia, becoming the first European woman to visit the city of Lhasa in the process. Noting Brown's technique of weaving into his text "the subject's own words to further dramatize the story," Susan P. Bloom wrote in Horn Book that the book's "present-tense narrative uses simple but riveting language" to draw young readers into the story of an "extraordinary woman's life." Dubbing Far beyond the Garden Gate "heady, powerful stuff," a Kirkus Reviews writer added that "Brown's signature watercolors are impressionistic, almost calligraphic."

In Uncommon Traveler Brown recounts the life of a nineteenth-century Englishwoman who journeyed to West Africa, telling her tale in a manner "as spirited as the woman herself," according to Michael Cart in Booklist. A lonely child who spent her childhood isolated in a joyless home with an invalid mother and absent father, Kingsley turned to reading as an escape. In 1892, the thirty-year-old woman sailed to Africa and, despite her cumbersome but proper Victorian ladies' costume, explored the western region, bonded with the native people, and collected fish and insects for the British Museum. Citing Brown for his "spare text," Starr LaTronica wrote in School Library Journal that Kingsley's picture-book biography is "filled with perfectly chosen details" that bring to life a "universally appealing tale of a neglected child who eventually triumphs through her own spirit of independence." Uncommon Traveler is one of several books by Brown that "begin in childhood dreams and ambitions," wrote Bloom, adding that the author's "quietly impassioned text finds its own soulmate in sketchy watercolors." In another Horn Book review, Barbara Barstow noted that the book "gives today's children a model of courage and daring" and paints Kingsley as "a character to remember."

Other biographies by Brown include One Giant Leap: The Story of Neil Armstrong, Bright Path: Young Jim Thorpe, Mack Made Movies, and Odd Boy Out: Young Albert Einstein. In Mack Made Movies, Brown takes young readers back to the early days of film, when Mack Sennett started the film production company that would become world famous for producing the Keystone Kops and other slapstick comedies of the silent-film era. Producing 140 films during his first year as a film producer, the visionary Sennett was inspired by his love of vaudeville and burlesque and is credited as the director who first hired silent-film legend Charlie Chaplin. Noting that the author/illustrator "distills an amazing amount of information into a true economy of story-line," a Kirkus Reviews contributor praised Brown's incorporation of a "flip-book" animation of a dancing dog into the corner of the book's pages. Noting Brown's "concise, brilliantly understated text," Booklist reviewer Julie Cummins added that the book's "spare, fluid sketches, softly washed in sepia and butterscotch tones, cunningly capture the look of the times," while a Publishers Weekly critic praised the text for reflecting "the clipped, staccato delivery of a vaudeville act" and incorporating quotes from Sennett's published autobiography.

In Bright Path Brown brings to life the challenges faced by a young Native American who, after growing up on the Oklahoma prairie and training to become a tailor, developed his natural athletic ability and went on to win two Olympic gold medals and renown as the world's greatest athlete. Jim Thorpe was born Wa-thohuck, or Bright Path in the language of his Sac and Fox tribe. After winning gold medals in the decathlon and pentathlon at the 1912 Summer Olympics, he went on to play professional football, basketball, and baseball. Featuring Brown's "signature watercolor-and-ink cartoony characters and dramatic storytelling, Bright Path presents "a solid look at a hero in the making," noted a Kirkus Reviews critic, while in Horn Book Vicky Smith praised Brown for giving the legendary Thorpe "an understated, humane treatment" in his picture-book biography.

While most of Brown's stories focus on the lives of figures from history, in Kid Blink Beats the World he follows a true-to-life David-and-Goliath story that took place on the streets of New York City in the summer of 1899. That year the city's two most powerful newspaper tycoons, Misters Pulitzer and Hearst, decided to take a penny more in profit by raising the wholesale price they charged the city's newsboys for each stack of ten papers from five to six cents. Defying the publishers and risking their livelihood, newsies such as Kid Blink, Crutch Morris, Race Track Higgins, and Crazy Airborn organized a boycott, bringing two of the most powerful men in America around to their way of thinking. Despite arrest, threats, and other strike-breaking tactics, hundreds of newsboys in the city remained united, and gained such support in the city that sales of the New York World dropped by a third. Noting that Brown's "lively account" of the New York newsies' strike will interest young readers, School Library Journal reviewer Kathy Krasniewicz added that readers will also gain "a better grasp of the elements of economics, the power of a penny, and the strength of organized labor." Peter D. Sieruta, writing in Horn Book, cited the book's "accessible text" for "present[ing] … a cogent, kid-empowered tale," adding that Brown's "loosely drawn pencil-and-watercolor illustrations convey great energy."

Brown moves from nonfiction to fiction in his first young-adult novel, Our Time on the River, and draws from the experiences of his own life. In a book that a Publishers Weekly critic described as a "convincing picture of brotherly bonding and of a complex era," he recounts a canoe trip down the Susquehanna taken by fourteen-year-old Steve and older brother David, at the urging of the boys' father. It is the late 1960s and the Vietnam War is ongoing in Asia, and David has decided to volunteer for service despite the war's unpopularity. In addition to the vagaries of weather, the brothers encounter a wide assortment of people on their trip, but more importantly, they get to know each other. Dubbing the book "an accomplished first novel," Paula Rohrlick added in Kliatt that Our Time on the River "is a well written, quietly affecting tale" about self-discovery, while in Booklist Frances Bradburn dubbed the novel "an interesting, accurate portrait of 1960s life" as well as "a satisfying read."

Discussing the evolution of his career from illustrator to nonfiction author, Brown explained to Publishers Weekly interviewer Sally Lodge: "I have always loved to read history and have a particular bent for forgotten or unusual things. I think that who history forgets and who history remembers is a rather serendipitous thing."

Biographical and Critical Sources

PERIODICALS

Audubon, November, 1999, review of Rare Treasure: Mary Anning and Her Remarkable Discoveries, p. 124.

Book, March, 2001, Kathleen Odean, review of Uncommon Traveler: Mary Kingsley in Africa, p. 86.

Booklist, August, 1993, Janice Del Negro, review of Ruth Law Thrills a Nation, p. 2066; August, 1998, Carolyn Phelan, review of One Giant Leap: The Story of Neil Armstrong, p. 2010; November 15, 1999, Ilene Cooper, review of Rare Treasure, p. 630; July, 2000, Michael Cart, review of Uncommon Traveler, p. 2032; September 15, 2001, GraceAnne A. DeCandido, review of A Voice from the Wilderness: The Story of Anna Howard Shaw, p. 224; April 1, 2002, Carolyn Phelan, review of Across a Dark and Wild Sea, p. 1340; March 1, 2003, Julie Cummins, review of Mack Made Movies, p. 1196; April 1, 2003, Frances Brad-burn, review of Our Time on the River, p. 1386; June 1, 2003, GraceAnne A. DeCandido, review of American Boy: The Adventures of Mark Twain, p. 1800; September 1, 2004, Jennifer Mattson, review of Odd Boy Out: Young Albert Einstein, p. 116; September 15, 2004, Ilene Cooper, review of Kid Blink Beats the World, p. 240; September 15, 2005, Hazel Rochman, review of The Good Lion, p. 73.

Bulletin of the Center for Children's Books, December, 1993, review of Ruth Law Thrills a Nation, p. 116; October, 2004, Elizabeth Bush, review of Odd Boy Out, p. 61.

Horn Book, November-December, 1997, Mary M. Burns, review of Alice Ramsey's Grand Adventure, p. 694; September, 2000, Susan P. Bloom, review of Uncommon Traveler, p. 593; November-December, 2001, Susan P. Bloom, review of A Voice from the Wilderness, p. 768; January-February, 2002, Barbara Barstow, review of Uncommon Traveler, p. 34; May-June, 2002, Mary M. Burns, review of Across a Dark and Wild Sea, p 342; September-October, 2002, Susan P. Bloom, review of Far beyond the Garden Gate: Alexandra David-Neel's Journey to Lhasa, p. 591; May-June, 2003, Mary M. Burns, review of Mack Made Movies, p. 367; September-October, 2004, Kitty Flynn, review of Odd Boy Out, p. 604; November-December, 2004, Peter D. Sieruta, review of Kid Blink Beats the World, p. 724; May-June, 2006, Vicky Smith, review of Bright Path: Young Jim Thorpe, p. 340.

Kirkus Reviews, January 15, 2002, review of Across a Dark and Wild Sea, p. 101; July 15, 2002, review of Far beyond the Garden Gate, p. 1027; February 15, 2003, review of Mack Made Movies, p. 300; April 15, 2003, review of Our Time on the River, p. 604; September 1, 2003, review of American Boy, p. 1120; September 1, 2004, review of Kid Blink Beats the World and Odd Boy Out, p. 861; April 1, 2006, review of Bright Path, p. 343.

Kliatt, March, 2003, Paula Rohrlick, review of Our Time on the River, p. 8.

Publishers Weekly, August 25, 1997, review of Alice Ramsey's Grand Adventure, p. 71; September 21, 1998, review of One Giant Leap, p. 84; August 16, 1999, review of Rare Treasure, p. 83; August 21, 2000, review of Uncommon Traveler, p. 72; January 21, 2002, review of Across a Dark and Wild Sea, p. 90; February 3, 2003, review of Our Time on the River, p. 76; March 3, 2003, review of Mack Made Movies, p. 76; October 18, 2004, reviews of Odd Boy Out, p. 63, and Kid Blink Beats The World, p. 64; October 25, 2004, Sally Lodge, "Don Brown: Bringing Historical Figures to Life," pp. 21-22.

School Library Journal, October, 1993, Lisa Dennis, review of Ruth Law Thrills a Nation, p. 116; September, 1998, Jackie Hechtkopf, review of One Giant Leap, p. 188; October, 1999, Margaret Bush, review of Rare Treasure, p. 132; September, 2000, Starr LaTronica, review of Uncommon Traveler, p. 214; September, 2001, Anne Chapman Callaghan, review of A Voice from the Wilderness, p. 211; May, 2002, Beth Tegart, review of Across a Dark and Wild Sea, p. 166; October, 2002, Barbara Scotto, review of Far beyond the Garden Gate, p. 140; March, 2003, Nina Lindsay, review of Mack Made Movies, p. 215; April, 2003, Vicki Reutter, review of Our Time on the River, p. 157; September, 2003, Wendy Lukehart, review of American Boy, p. 196; October, 2004, Marilyn Taniguchi, review of Odd Boy Out, p. 138; December, 2004, Kathy Krasniewicz, review of Kid Blink Beats the World, p. 98; October, 2005, Margaret Bush, review of The Good Lion, p. 120.