Judge, Lita

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Judge, Lita

Personal

Born in Ketchikan, AK; married; husband's name Dave. Education: Graduated from Oregon State University. Hobbies and other interests: Traveling, reading, gardening, yoga.

Addresses

Home—Peterborough, NH. Office—Wilder Farm Studio, 77 Wilder Farm Rd., Peterborough, NH 03458. E-mail—[email protected].

Career

Author and illustrator. Has worked as an environmental geologist and a paleobotanist.

Member

Society of Children's Book Writers and Illustrators.

Awards, Honors

New York Public Library 100 Books for Reading and Sharing selection, New York Public Library, and Gold Award winner, National Parenting Publications Awards, both 2007, Children's Book Award and Notable Book for a Global Society, both International Reading Association, Notable Children's Book selection, American Library Association, Jane Addams Children's Book Award Honor designation, Notable Children's Books in the Language Arts designation, National Council of Teachers of English, and Storytelling World Resource Award, all 2008, all for One Thousand Tracings: Healing the Wounds of World War II.

Writings

SELF-ILLUSTRATED

One Thousand Tracings: Healing the Wounds of World War II, Hyperion Books (New York, NY), 2007.

(With Todd Chapman) D Is for Dinosaur: A Prehistoric Alphabet, Sleeping Bear Press (Chelsea, MI), 2007.

ILLUSTRATOR

Donna Jo Napoli, Ugly, Hyperion Books (New York, NY), 2006.

Helen Foster James, S Is for S'mores: A Camping Alphabet, Sleeping Bear Press (Chelsea, MI), 2007.

Donna Jo Napoli, Mogo, the Third Warthog, Hyperion Books (New York, NY), 2008.

Sidelights

Lita Judge, a former environmental geologist and paleobotanist, now writes and illustrates children's books. "I've loved drawing from as early as I can remember," Judge remarked on her home page. "I especially loved drawing birds from life and dinosaurs from my imagination. Writing came later for me. I think my love of reading finally led me to want to write my own stories." Judge has provided the artwork for Ugly, an adaptation of Hans Christian Andersen's "The Ugly Duckling" by Donna Jo Napoli, as well as D Is for Dinosaur: A Prehistoric Alphabet, a title she coauthored with Todd Chapman.

In her self-illustrated One Thousand Tracings: Healing the Wounds of World War II, Judge describes her grandparents' effort to assist European survivors in the aftermath of war. "When I was cleaning out my grandmother's attic after her death, I found a dusty box stuffed with aged yellowed envelopes," Judge wrote on the One Thousand Tracings Web site. "I was intrigued when I lifted out the first envelope; it had a German stamp postmarked 1947 and inside were two paper foot tracings." Judge learned that her grandparents had founded The Action, a relief organization that provided food and clothing to more than 3,000 people in thirteen countries; the tracings helped volunteers determine the survivors' shoe sizes. "I wish my grandmother could have shared these memories with me, but I feel closer to her

now for having discovered the truth," Judge observed. "I wish I had known about it when she was alive so I could tell her how proud I am. Instead, I wrote my book as a tribute to her."

In One Thousand Tracings a six-year-old Midwestern girl and her mother take action after receiving a letter from a friend describing the horrific conditions in postwar Germany. The "narration offers a child's perspective on the tragedies and hope of the era, making the story especially accessible to young audiences," noted a critic in Publishers Weekly. Marianne Saccardi, writing in School Library Journal, commented that Judge's "soft-edged paintings are colorful and fluid and create a strong sense of time and place."

Biographical and Critical Sources

PERIODICALS

Booklist, May 15, 2007, Hazel Rochman, review of One Thousand Tracings: Healing the Wounds of World War II, p. 47.

Kirkus Reviews, December 15, 2005, review of Ugly, p. 1326; June 15, 2007, review of One Thousand Tracings.

Publishers Weekly, February 6, 2006, review of Ugly, p. 70; June 11, 2007, review of One Thousand Tracings, p. 59.

School Library Journal, March, 2006, Susan Hepler, review of Ugly, p. 199; July, 2007, Marianne Saccardi, review of One Thousand Tracings, p. 92.