![]() She adopted Mitchell’s concept of “direct observation” and went to the children themselves to glean her text for A Hole Is to Dig. Ruth Krauss incorporated the “here and now” philosophy originated by educator and author Lucy Sprague Mitchell, founder of the Bank Street School, who maintained that “young children live in the ’here and now’ world around them, which they use as a laboratory for their explorations.” Krauss furthered Mitchell’s ideas by incorporating psychologist-pediatrician Arnold Gesell’s theories on the acquisition of language to create her own playful perspective on a young child’s reality. Their fortuitous be ginning resulted in the publication of A Hole is to Dig: A First Book of First Definitions (1951), the small innovative picture book that established Sendak as a formidable figure in children’s book illustration.ĭuring the early 1940s, Ruth Krauss was a member of the experimental Writers Laboratory at the Bank Street School in New York City, a program that fostered the talents of other great picture book writers, such as Margaret Wise Brown. Among them were eight picture book collaborations with illustrator Maurice Sendak. ![]() Best known for her classic picture book, The Carrot Seed (1944), illustrated by her husband, Crockett Johnson, Ruth Krauss went on to publish more than thirty books over the next four decades. Inspired by the experimental atmosphere in child development circles during the 1940s and 1950s, Ruth Krauss created simple stories and poetry for young children. ![]()
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