J. Patrick Lewis (1942–) Biography

Born 1942, in Gary, IN; (stepEducation: St. Joseph's College (Rensselaer, IN), B.A., 1964; Indiana University—Bloomington, M.A., 1965; Ohio State University, Ph.D., 1974.

Addresses

Agent—Ginger Knowlton, Curtis Brown, Lt., 10 Astor Pl., New York, NY 10003.

Career

Otterbein College, Westerville, OH, professor of economics, 1974–98; writer for children; speaker at conferences; presents teachers' workshops on introducing poetry in the classroom.

Member

Society of Children's Book Writers and Illustrators, National Council of Teachers of English, International Reading Association.

Honors Awards

Ohio Arts Council individual artist grant, 1991; Children's Book of the Year, Ohioana Library Association, 1989, for The Tsar and the Amazing Cow; individual artist grant for adult poetry, Ohio Arts Council, 1989; Kentucky Bluegrass Award nomination, 1991, for A Hippopotamusn't; notable book designation, American Library Association, 1992, for The Moonbow of Mr. B. Bones, 1995, for Black Swan/White Crow, 2002, for Freedom like Sunlight; Parents magazine honor book award, 1994, for The Fat-Cats at Sea; Kentucky Bluegrass Award, 1996, for The Christmas of the Reddle Moon; Hoosier Book Award nomination, 1998, for Doodle Dandies; Coretta Scott King Award nomination, 2000, for Freedom like Sunlight; Storytelling World honor book, 2000, for Isabella Abnormella; Golden Kite Award, Society of Childrens Book Writers and Illustrators, 2001, for The Shoe Tree of Chagrin; Gold Book Award, National Association of Parent Publishers, and New York Times ten best illustrated books of the year listee, both 2002, and Raggazi honor award, Bologna book festival, 2003, all for The Last Resort; Henry Bergh Children's Book Award for Poetry, American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals, 2003, and Golden Lamp Book of the Year Award, Association of Publishers, 2004, both for Swan Song; Alice Louise Wood Memorial Prize, Ohioana Awards, 2004, for lifetime achievement in children's literature.

Writings

FOR CHILDREN

The Tsar and the Amazing Cow, illustrated by Friso Henstra, Dial (New York, NY), 1988.

A Hippopotamusn't and Other Animal Verses, illustrated by Victoria Chess, Dial (New York, NY), 1990.

J. Patrick Lewis

Two-legged, Four-legged, No-legged Rhymes, illustrated by Pamela Paparone, Knopf (New York, NY), 1991.

Earth Verses and Water Rhymes, illustrated by Robert Sabuda, Atheneum (New York, NY), 1991.

The Moonbow of Mr. B. Bones, illustrated by Dirk Zimmer, Knopf (New York, NY), 1992.

One Dog Day, illustrated by Marcy Dunn Ramsey, Atheneum (New York, NY), 1993.

(Reteller) The Frog Princess: A Russian Folktale, illustrated by Gennady Spirin, Dial (New York, NY), 1994.

July Is a Mad Mosquito, illustrated by Melanie W. Hall, Atheneum (New York, NY), 1994.

The Christmas of the Reddle Moon, pictures by Gary Kelley, Dial (New York, NY), 1994.

The Fat-Cats at Sea, illustrated by Victoria Chess, Knopf (New York, NY), 1994.

Black Swan/White Crow (haiku), woodcuts by Chris Manson, Atheneum (New York, NY), 1995.

Ridicholas Nicholas: More Animal Poems, pictures by Victoria Chess, Dial (New York, NY), 1995.

Riddle-icious, illustrated by Debbie Tilley, Knopf (New York, NY), 1996.

The Boat of Many Rooms, illustrated by Reg Cartwright, Atheneum (New York, NY), 1996.

The La-Di-Da Hare, illustrated by Diane Blumenthal, Dial (New York, NY), 1997.

Long Was the Winter Road They Traveled: A Tale of the Nativity, illustrated by Drew Bairley, Dial (New York, NY), 1997.

The Little Buggers: Insect and Spider Poems, illustrated by Victoria Chess, Dial (New York, NY), 1997.

Riddle-lightful, illustrated by Debbie Tilley, Knopf (New York, NY), 1998.

The House of Boo, illustrated by Katya Krenina, Atheneum (New York, NY), 1998.

Doodle Dandies: Poems That Take Shape, illustrated by Lisa Desimini, Atheneum (New York, NY), 1998.

BoshBlobberBosh: Runcible Poems for Edward Lear, illustrated by Gary Kelley, Harcourt (New York, NY), 1998.

At the Wish of the Fish: An Adaptation of a Russian Folktale, illustrated by Katya Krenina, Atheneum (New York, NY), 1999.

The Bookworm's Feast: A Potluck of Poems, Dial (New York, NY), 1999.

The Night of the Goat Children, illustrated by Alexi Natchev, Dial (New York, NY), 1999.

Isabella Abnormella and the Very, Very Finicky Queen of Trouble, illustrated by Kyrsten Brooker, DK Publishing (New York, NY), 2000.

Freedom like Sunlight: Praisesongs for Black Americans, Creative Editions (Mankato, MN), 2000.

Good Mousekeeping, and Other Animal Home Poems, illustrated by Lisa Desimini, Atheneum (New York, NY), 2001.

A Burst of Firsts: Doers, Shakers, and Record Breakers, illustrated by Brian Ajhar, Dial (New York, NY), 2001.

The Shoe Tree of Chagrin, illustrated by Chris Sheban, Creative Editions (Mankato, MN), 2001.

Arithme-tickle: An Even Number of Odd Riddle-Rhymes, illustrated by Frank Remkiewicz, Harcourt (San Diego, CA), 2002.

A World of Wonders: Geographic Travels in Verse and Rhyme, ilustrated by Alison Jay, Dial (New York, NY), 2002.

The Last Resort, illustrated by Roberto Innocenti, Creative Editions (Mankato, MN) 2002.

The Snowflake Sisters, illustrated by Lisa Desimini, Atheneum (New York, NY), 2003.

Galileo's Universe, illustrated by Tim Curry, Creative Editions (Mankato, MN), 2003.

Swan Songs: Poems of Extinction, illustrated by Christopher Wormell, Creative Editions (Mankato, MN), 2003.

Scien-trickery: Riddles in Science, illustrated by Frank Remkiewicz, Silver Whistle (Orlando, FL), 2004.

Please Bury Me in the Library, illustrated by Kyle M. Stone, Harcourt (Orlando, FL), 2004.

The Stolen Smile, illustrated by Gary Kelley, Creative Editions (Mankato, MN), 2004.

Vherses: A Celebration of Outstanding Women, illustrated by Mark Summers, Creative Editions (Mankato, MN), 2005.

Monumental Verses, National Geographic (Washington, DC), 2005.

God Made the Skunk; and Other Animal Poems, Doggerel Daze, 2005.

Heroes and She-roes: Poems of Amazing and Everyday Heroes, illustrated by Jim Cooke, Dial (New York, NY), 2005.

Once upon a Tomb: Gravely Humorous Verses, illustrated by Simon Bartram, Candlewick Press (Cambridge, MA), 2006.

Blackbeard the Pirate King, National Geographic (Washington, DC), 2006.

The Underwear Salesman; and Other Odd-Job Verses, illustrated by Serge Bloch, Simon & Schuster (New York, NY), 2006.

Black Cat Bone: A Live of Blues Legend Robert Johnson in Verse, illustrated by Gary Kelley, Creative Editions (Mankato, MN), 2006.

Good Mornin', Ms. America: The U.S.A. in Verse, School Specialty Publishing, 2006.

Wing Nuts: Screwy Haiku, illustrated by Tricia Tusa, Little, Brown (Boston, MA), 2006.

(With Rebecca Kai Dotlich) Castles: Cold Stone Poems, ilustrated by Dan Burr, Boyds Mills Press (Honesdale, PA), 2007.

Tulip at the Bat, illustrated by Amiko Hirao, Little, Brown (Boston, MA), 2007.

Big Is Big and Little Little: A Book of Contrasts, illustrated by Bob Barner, Holiday House (New York, NY), 2007.

"SHARING NATURE WITH CHILDREN" SERIES: NONFICTION

Earth and You, a Closer View: Nature's Features, Dawn Publications (Nevada City, CA), 2001.

Earth and Us, Continuous: Nature's Past and Future, Dawn Publications (Nevada City, CA), 2001.

Earth and Me, Our Family Tree, Dawn Publications (Nevada City, CA), 2002.

OTHER

(Compiler, with Jan S. Adams and Michael W. Curran) The USSR Today: Current Readings from the Soviet Press: Selections from the Current Digest of the Soviet Press, from May 16, 1973, to June 25, 1975, American Association for the Advancement of Slavic Studies (Columbus, OH), 1975.

Poems and short fiction included in anthologies. Contributor of book reviews to periodicals, including New York Times, Nation, Progressive, Technology Review, Chicago Tribune, and San Francisco Chronicle; contributor of articles and reviews to professional journals; contributor of children's poems to periodicals, including Ahoy, Bookbird, Cricket, Journal of Children's Literature, Spider, Ladybug, Cicada, Odyssey, Ranger Rick, Highlights, Ms., Your Big Backyard, Chickadee, Creative Classroom, Storytime, and Storyworks. Contributor of adult poems to periodicals, including Gettysburgh Review, Dalhousie Review, New Letters, Senecal Review, Kansas Quarterly, Event, Spoon River Quarterly, Slate, American Literary Review, Yankee, and Southern Humanities Review. Contributor of short fiction to Wisconsin Review, Other Voices, Kansas Quarterly, Phoebe, Sun Dog, Madison Review, and New England Review.

Work in Progress

Two Outs, Bases Loaded: Baseball Poems, for Harcourt, 2007; The Brothers' War: The Civil War in Verse, for National Geographic, 2007; (with Paul B. Janeczko) Birds on a Wire: A Renga Round Town, for Boyds Mills Press, 2007; Spot the Plot! A Riddle Book of Book Riddles, illustrated by Lynn Munsinger, for Chronicle Books, 2007; and Biggest, Smallest, Shortest, Tallest: X-treme Poems, illustrated by Keith Graves, for Chronicle Books, 2008.

Sidelights

While working as a professor of economics at an Ohio university, J. Patrick Lewis led something of a double life. Beginning his career as a children's book author in the late 1980s, he wrote poems and stories for youngsters part time, and since his retirement has devoted full time to children's literature. Influenced by such authors as Lewis Carroll, A. A. Milne, and Edward Lear, he has also drawn on his interest in Russian language and culture. In his first book for young readers, The Tsar and the Amazing Cow, he tells the story of an elderly couple who are finding it hard to get by until the milk of a magic cow enables them to recapture the vigor of youth. When the greedy tsar hears of the wonderful cow, he orders the couple to St. Petersburg, but the cow manages to evade capture and ultimately all is well. Writing in Booklist, Ilene Cooper praised The Tsar and the Amazing Cow as a "well-told tale," and Margaret A. Bush described it in Horn Book as a "spare, well-paced narrative, adroitly embellished with an occasional richness of phrase." His picture book The Last Resort, with illustrations by Roberto Innocenti, won the Bologna Raggazi Honor Award and was translated into fifteen languages.

While Lewis has authored many other prose texts, he is most well known for his verse collections, which include A Hippopotamusn't and Other Animal Verses, Heroes and She-roes: Poems of Amazing and Everyday Heroes, and Scien-Trickery: Riddles in Science, the last which contains eighteen science-inspired rhyming riddles that a Kirkus Reviews contributor guaranteed would "engage both the minds and the funny bones of young readers."

Many of Lewis's verse collections for young readers focus on animal characters, and almost all feature wordplay and engaging rhyme. A Hippopotamusn't and Other Animal Verses centers on birds and beasts; Hearne dubbed the book "playful, clever, and above all, freshly worded." In the book Lewis presents a variety of poetic forms, including quatrains, couplets, haiku, and limericks. In one poem he writes: "There's a squishy/ Fish critter/ Swishing in my/ Oyster stew./ Tell me, Oyster,/ Mister? Sister?/ Girl or Boyster?/ Which are you?" In a review for Horn Book, Mary M. Burns pointed out Lewis's concise descriptions of animal characters as diverse as vultures and tomcats, concluding of A Hippopotamusn't and Other Animal Verses: "If there is anyone who doesn't chortle over this book, don't bother trying to please him or her—nothing ever will."

Other rhyming books include Two-legged, Four-legged, No-legged Rhymes, in which an assortment of creatures that includes cats, porcupines, and mosquitoes undergo the Lewis treatment. Nesting habits are the focus of Good Mousekeeping, and Other Animal Home Poems, in which Lewis imagines the sort of homes wild animals—from flamingos to cats, to polar bears—might chose if they were human. In Booklist Kay Weisman praised Good Mousekeeping as an "imaginative, humorous collection" guaranteed to "delight even poetry curmudgeons," and Kathleen Whalin was prompted by the book to note in School Library Journal that "no one is better at clever wordplay than Lewis."

Lewis serves up more outlandish humor in Ridicholas Nicholas: More Animal Poems and Riddle-icious, the last of which Bulletin of the Center for Children's Books reviewer Deborah Stevenson wrote: "Some books try to make language fun. This one knows it already is and invites readers to share in the revel." Riddle-icious consists of riddle-poems, one of which describes a cow: "Standing under summer skies,/ Her back end's good for swatting flies./ If there's nothing else to do,/ Her front end's good for making moo./ Front to back and in between,/ She's the original cream machine." Riddle-lightful, a follow-up to Riddle-icious, contains thirty-two more simple-to-very-puzzling riddles. "Young wits will congratulate themselves when they figure out the answers to these clever brainteasers," said a critic in Publishers Weekly.

In addition to his animal verses, Lewis has also stepped back to view the home all animals share. In Earth Verses and Water Rhymes his tone becomes, in the words of Bulletin of the Center for Children's Books contributor Betsy Hearne, "more sober." Leone McDermott agreed in Booklist, writing that Earth Verses and Water Rhymes is a "pleasant book for curling up with at home or for reading aloud to a group." Praised by a Publishers Weekly reviewer as "a full-scale treat for the armchair traveler" A World of Wonders: Geographic Travels in Verse and Rhyme also scans the planet. Taking readers on trips alongside Christopher Columbus and others, Lewis also dispenses a wealth of geological and travel trivia. Other books that focus on the natural world are the three volumes in Lewis's "Sharing Nature with Children" series. Earth and Us, Continuous serves as an introduction to the game board of life; the book describes the geology and ecology of planet Earth in verse that Booklist critic Gillian Engberg described as "written in sweeping language and poetic metaphors." Other volumes in the series include Earth and Me, Our Family Tree and Earth and You, a Closer View.

Moving from poetry collections to rhythmic storytelling, Lewis maintains his humorous outlook and ability to play with basic vocabulary. The Moonbow of Mr. B. Bones, which continues in the folkloric tradition of The Tsar and the Amazing Cow, moves from Russia to the United States as Mr. B. Bones sells "magic jars with mysterious labels—Sundrops, Snowrays, Moonbows, Rainflakes, and Whistling Wind." He does a brisk business until someone claims that the jars are empty, but when Mr. B. opens a jar, a shining light convinces everyone that his "moonbows" are real. "A fine poet," Rochman wrote in Booklist, "Lewis tells the story with a lilting, colloquial rhythm." School Library Journal
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contributor Susan Scheps concluded that, "The folktale qualities of plot and narrative make this a good choice for reading aloud."

The Frog Princess, also rooted in Russian folklore, makes use of a story that some reviewers described as "complex." When a tsar commands each of his three sons to shoot an arrow into the forest and marry the woman who retrieves it, his youngest son winds up married to a frog who has brought back his arrow. However, this frog is special; in fact she is a beautiful woman who has been placed under a curse by her father. "Lewis's retelling of this complex Russian tale," wrote School Library Journal contributor Linda Boyles, "is smooth and easy, lightened by touches of humor."

The Fat-Cats at Sea finds a group of six sailor cats setting off to the Isle of Sticky-Goo to retrieve the island's famous sticky buns for Her Majesty, the queen of Catmandoo. They go through the same adventures readers of sea tales have come to expect since Homer wrote his Odyssey: homesickness, hostile vessels, and washing up on the shores of a lotus-like paradise. "The jaunty rhythms and smooth impeccable rhymes flow effortlessly, employing a highly appealing blend of downright silliness and a more sophisticated cleverness," stated a Publishers Weekly reviewer.

In The Snowflake Sisters Lewis narrows readers' world-view to that of two unique snowflakes that fall one Christmas night, amid a sea of billions and billions of other ice crystals. Floating down through the night sky, sisters Crystal and Ivory ride on Santa's sleigh, watch the ball drop in New York's Times Square, and drift to a quiet resting place on a friendly snowman. In School Library Journal Susan Patron praised the poet's "elegant and fluid rhymed text," while in Booklist Ilene Cooper called the text "clever" and had special praise for Lisa Desimini's illustrations, collages that "delightfully catch" Lewis's "wordplay." As a Kirkus Reviews writer noted, "never has the snowy season been celebrated with more joie de vivre."

In Doodle Dandies: Poems That Take Shape Lewis presents a series of concrete poems: verse where words are arranged in the shape of the thing they are describing. In a poem about a giraffe, for example, the word tail forms the tail of the giraffe and the word stilts is repeated four times to form the giraffe's legs. "These poems take both shape and flight as they soar through the imaginative landscape," enthused Lauren Adams in Horn Book. Of Lewis's work with illustrator Desimini, Adams called it "A true collaboration of text and art presenting poems that are pictures that are poems."

Some of Lewis's books feature Biblical themes. The Boat of Many Rooms, for instance, tells the story of Noah and his ark through a collection of rhythmic verses. A reviewer in Publishers Weekly applauded the narrative, commenting that "Lewis employs a wide variety of rhyme scheme and stanza length to convey the
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bustling energy." Long Was the Winter Road They Traveled: A Tale of the Nativity, another bible-based book, is in the words of Booklist reviewer Susan Dove Lempke, "A reverent, tender look at the wonders of a night almost 2,000 years ago." The House of Boo, on the other hand, is a spooky poem that celebrates a distinctly non-Christian holiday: Halloween.

Proving that truth proves as fascinating as fiction, Lewis has also delved into modern history in several illustrated books for slightly older readers. Heroes and Sheroes: Poems of Amazing and Everyday Heroes contains twenty-one verses that bring to life individuals such as civil rights activist Rosa Parks, Indian pacifist Mahatma Gandhi, and Pakistani child activist Iqbal Mashih, as well as firefighters, teachers, and even an Alaskan rescue dog. The Stolen Smile focuses on suspected art thief Vincenzo Peruggia, an employee of Paris's famous Louvre museum who was caught in 1913, two years after stealing the Mona Lisa and displaying it in his living quarters.

In his homage to Edward Lear, Lewis's BoshBlobberBosh collects sixteen poems in various forms about the life of Lear, the unparalleled limericist and king of nonsense verse, or "bosh." Lewis explores Lear's childhood as the twentieth child in a family of twenty-one, his job as an art instructor to England's Queen Victoria, and even Lear's cat, Mr. Foss. Biographical notes explain the parts of Lear's life from whence the poems are drawn. "The verses are a bit more sweetly whimsical that Lear's angular nonsense," stated Deborah Stevenson in the Bulletin of the Center for Children's Books, "but they're enjoyable evocations of the poet's classic contributions, and Lewis has often caught his forerunner's tone." School Library Journal contributor Robin L. Gibson thought the collection to be a fitting pairing with Lear's original pen-and-ink drawings but added that "they are strong enough to stand on their own." A reviewer in Publishers Weekly approved of the tribute, writing that "Literary chronicles seldom prove as amicable … and Lear himself would certainly be pleased that Lewis's limericks scan perfectly."

In The La-Di-Da Hare Lewis pays tribute to nineteenth-century nonsense writers Lewis Carroll and Lear, and also reflects several other quirky influences with an upbeat story told, appropriately, in nonsense rhyme. Thus the hare of the title wears a ring of "2-carrot gold," and walks on "Q-Tip toes." A mouse's journey with the Honeypot Bear takes them across "The blue butterfly-land" to "The fabulous Island of Oh." Praising The La-Di-Da Hare as an "unpredictable and spirited romp," a Publishers Weekly critic wrote that Lewis has successfully mimicked the masters in a work that "blithely echoes classic nonsense poetry."