Colin Bootman Biography

Born in Trinidad. Education: Attended School of Visual Arts.

Addresses

Agent—c/o Author Mail, Holiday House, 425 Madison Ave., New York, NY 10017

Career

Illustrator. Teacher of art to middle-and high-school students.

Writings

SELF-ILLUSTRATED

Fish for the Grand Lady, Holiday House (New York, NY), 2005.

ILLUSTRATOR

Kinda Walvoord Girard, Young Frederick Douglass: The Slave Who Learned to Read, Albert Whitman (Morton Grove, IL), 1994.

Joanne Hyppolite, Seth and Samona, Delacorte Press (New York, NY), 1995.

Irene Smalls, Louise's Gift: Or What Did She Give Me That For?, Little, Brown, (Boston, MA), 1996.

Vicki Winslow, Follow the Leader, Delacorte Press (New York, NY), 1997.

Katrin Tchana, Oh, No, Toto!, Scholastic (New York, NY), 1997.

Jerdine Nolen, In My Momma's Kitchen, Lothrop, Lee & Shepard (New York, NY), 1999.

Gwendolyn Battle-Lavert, The Music in Derrick's Heart, Holiday House (New York, NY), 2000.

David A. Adler, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., Holiday House (New York, NY), 2001.

Irene Smalls, Don't Say Ain't, Charlesbridge Pub. (Watertown, MA), 2003.

Vaunda Micheaux Nelson, Almost to Freedom, Carolrhoda Books (Minneapolis, MN), 2003.

Gwendolyn Battle-Lavert, Papa's Mark, Holiday House (New York, NY), 2003.

David A. Adler, A Picture Book of Harriet Beecher Stowe, Holiday House (New York, NY), 2003.

Fish for the Grand Lady, Holiday House (New York, NY), 2005.

Myron Uhlberg, Dad, Jackie, and Me, Peachtree Publishers (Atlanta, GA), 2005.

Sidelights

Trinidad-born illustrator Colin Bootman moved to New York City as a child, and quickly embraced art. After graduating from the city's LaGuardia High School of the Arts and attending college, Bootman began a professional career in illustration, and has contributed artwork to books by authors such as Gwendolyn Battle-Lavert, Jerdine Nolen, and David A. Adler. Noted for painting in vibrant hues and for his affectionate portraits of African-American children, Bootman frequently collaborates on book projects that reflect black life and culture. The history of black Americans is also a focus of Bootman's; in books such as Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. by Adler, and his first published book, Kinda Walvoord Girard's Young Frederick Douglass: The Slave Who Learned to Read, Bootman profiles the lives of famous black Americans from the past.

In a Publishers Weekly review, a critic commented that Bootman's oil paintings for Papa's Mark contain "emotion-filled character studies" that echo author Battle-Lavert's story of a man's determination to vote. Hazel Rochman, writing in Booklist, commented on the illustrations for Don't Say Ain't, stating "Bootman's handsome, realistic oil paintings capture both the period setting and one child's personal conflict." In Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., Bootman fills the pages with full-page illustrations that School Library Journal reviewer Eunice Weech called "realistic" and helpful in filling in "the details for the author's spare but well-chosen words." Carolyn Phelan noted in her Booklist review of Adler's picture-book biography of the noted civil rights leader that "Bootman's painterly illustrations convey the book's serious tone through the often grave expressions of the characters and the generally dark palette of colors."