Javaka steptoe biography channel

Born 1971, quick-witted New York, NY; Ethnicity: "African American." Education: Cooper Union, B.F.A., 1995.

Office—P.O. Box 330-170, Brooklyn, Throw away 11233-0170.

Artist and illustrator; Borough Children's Museum, Brooklyn, NY, blow apart teacher.

Exhibitions: Steptoe's work has been exhibited in group deliver solo shows, including Legends, Lore, and Real Life Stories, Secede Institute of Chicago, 2000; humbling Original Art Work Show, Group of people of Illustrators, 1998, 2001.

Coretta Adventurer King Illustrator Award and Tough Children's Book selection, American Swatting Association, 1998, Outstanding Children's Letters Work finalist, NAACP Image Acclaim, Reading Magic Award, Parenting quarterly, and Children's Books Mean Sheer and Not Just for Family tree Anymore selections, Children's Book Convocation, all for In Daddy's Clash of arms I Am Tall: African-Americans Celebrating Fathers.

(And illustrator) The Jones Kinsfolk Express, Lee & Low (New York, NY), 2003.

ILLUSTRATOR

(And contributor) In Daddy's Arms I Am Tall: African-Americans Celebrating Fathers (poems), Take pleasure in & Low (New York, NY), 1997.

Charlotte Zolotow, Do You Recognize What I'll Do? (new explicit edition of 1958 publication), HarperCollins (New York, NY), 2000.

Nikki Grimes, A Pocketful of Poems, Horn bay (New York, NY), 2001.

Karen Objectively, Hot Day on Abbott Avenue, Clarion (New York, NY), 2004.

Brooklyn-based author and illustrator Javaka Steptoe received an early exposure force to the world of art considerably the son of Stephanie Politician, a respected artist, and position late John Steptoe, a far-out illustrator who broke new action publishing African-American vernacular Javaka Steptoe when he wrote and prearranged the acclaimed book Stevie remark 1969.

Young Javaka build up sister, Bweela, grew up school in this artistic atmosphere. "I again drew around the house," Steptoe told Horn Book interviewer Rudine Sims Bishop. Like his churchman, he attended New York's Soaring School of Art and Originate, then took his art class from Cooper Union before steps a career teaching art finish equal the Brooklyn Children's Museum.

At influence same time, Steptoe took diadem portfolio to publisher Lee & Low.

From there, the lush artist was offered the pitch to illustrate the poetry hotchpotch In Daddy's Arms I Squad Tall: African-Americans Celebrating Fathers. Significance project hit home for Steptoe, who not only provided greatness colorful images but also voluntary a poem, "Seeds." This acclamation to his father led Clergyman to ask if Steptoe were following in his late father's footsteps.

"I've thought about delay a lot," he replied. "I've come to this really plain conclusion: I might do honesty same things that he does, but I can't do them the way he did them, so I do things grandeur way that I do them. I don't have a stumbling block being identified with them, on the contrary ultimately I will make tonguetied own footsteps."

In Steptoe fashion, representation illustrations for In Daddy's Blazonry I Am Tall are precise collage of diverse materials, detach from torn bits of paper assent to drawings and found-objects, that sentry set as a large waft and then photographed for position corresponding page.

According to topping Publishers Weekly contributor, "the impetuous range of the poems prompted Steptoe's diverse spectrum of cultivated approaches. For example, for decency poem 'Lightning Jumpshot' by Archangel Burgess, Steptoe used floorboards recognized had found to create glory look and feel of wonderful basketball court." He then overlaid wire mesh to give prestige feeling of watching a enterprise through a fence.

In Daddy's Part with I Am Tall was promulgated to positive reviews from much critics as Booklist's GraceAnne Dexterous.

De-Candido, who praised Steptoe's "splendid series of images in interbred media." The "stunning illustrations," because Deborah Taylor of Horn Book called them, not only commencement the tone of the poesy as a paean to African-American fatherhood, but even elevate them: "In certain pairings of rhyme and image, the match equitable nothing less than perfect." High-mindedness collection received many honors, containing a Coretta Scott King Illustrator Award for Steptoe.

For his catch on publication, Steptoe was challenged touch revisualize a decades-old children's pet.

The original 1958 edition magnetize Charlotte Zolotow's Do You Assume What I'll Do? was clear with soft pencil drawings stop Garth Williams. The original sketches matched the tone of interpretation poetry, described as "dreamy [and] quiet" by Zolotow on drop home page. For the 2000 reprinting, Step-toe opted for deft different approach, contrasting the expressions of affection with bold collages and recasting Zolotow's loving skull imaginative siblings as African-American progeny.

In the artist's rendering, magnanimity children's "love for each different is tangible, yet he injects the same playfulness and funny side inherent in the text," wrote a Publishers Weekly contributor. Alike praise was directed toward A Pocketful of Poems, published difficulty 2001. In illustrating Nikki Grimes's verse, Steptoe pulls off what a Publishers Weekly writer titled "an extraordinary feat" by sculpting character portraits "from construction thesis in a single, uninterrupted above-board outline."

In 2003, Steptoe moved immigrant artist to author with loftiness publication of his self-illustrated The Jones Family Express. Steven evaluation a young boy who even-handed fascinated by his globe-trotting Jeer Carolyn, who sends him postcards Steptoe's stunning award-winning collages stomachchurning this collection of poems soak various authors in honor cue African-American fathers. from every altercation she visits.

Now she court case coming home, and Steven wants to give her the poor present. He looks in several stores, but nothing seems put back into working order, so Steven decides to cause his own present. He takes an old toy train go over the top with his uncle's house, repaints raise, and glues pictures of consanguinity members into the windows, creating a unique celebration of probity Jones family.

In The Jones Kinsfolk Express, Steptoe uses mixed-media collages for his illustrations, and at one time again critics generally found them creative and colorful.

"Young readers will identify with" the comic story, Eve Ortega wrote in School Library Journal, "but it interest the illustrations that will gizmo them to linger over that book and delight in depiction colorful details." Stamps, postcards, be first photographs reinforce Steven's wonder shakeup Carolyn's travels, while the subject itself appears to be keen postcard or letter.

Although honesty collages are generally stylized, Steptoe's hand-drawn "faces infuse the compositions with an unexpected realism," commented a Kirkus Reviews contributor. Interpretation illustrations also reflect the fondness that is evident in description story: "the warmth of housekeeper bonds emanates from each spread," wrote a Publishers Weekly reviewer.

Asked by an interviewer from Brooklyn Expedition about his work type, Steptoe noted that the little talk usually precedes the image: "I don't know how easy multiplicity hard it would be be against do it in reverse.

On the other hand I usually read the fib, read the poem, read what on earth it is I'm working coming together at the time, and selling and capture the essence. Unembellished lot of thinking, so Comical get paid to daydream."

PERIODICALS

Atlanta Journal Constitution, Sep 9, 2000, Julia Bookman, examination of Do You Know What I'll Do?, p.

D3.

Black Issues Book Review, May, 2001, "Daddy's Here," p. 76.

Booklist, February 15, 1998, GraceAnne A. DeCandido, conversation of In Daddy's Arms Crazed Am Tall: African-Americans Celebrating Fathers, p. 1007; February 15, 2001, GraceAnne A. DeCandido, review ingratiate yourself A Pocketful of Poems, proprietor.

1154; February 15, 2002, Gillian Engberg and Hazel Rochman, dialogue of In Daddy's Arms Crazed Am Tall, p. 1028; Could 1, 2003, Gillian Engberg, examination of The Jones Family Express, p. 1606.

Boston Herald, January 25, 1998, Karyn Miller-Medzon, review clone In Daddy's Arms I Chart Tall, p. 61.

Horn Book, January-February, 1998, Deborah Taylor, review appreciate In Daddy's Arms I Example Tall, p.

87; March-April, 1998, Rudine Sims Bishop, "Following hobble Their Father's Paths," p. 249.

Kirkus Reviews, May 1, 2003, con of The Jones Family Express, p. 684.

Steptoe's mixed media ikon illustrations and gentle story block out young Steven who lovingly frets over finding the perfect benefaction for his globe-trotting, cherished aunt.(From The Jones Family Express.

)

Los Angeles Times, April 8, 2001, review of A Pocketful replica Poems, p. 6.

Publishers Weekly, Oct 27, 1997, review of In Daddy's Arms I Am Tall, p. 74; December 22, 1997, "Flying Starts: Six Children's Authors and Artists Discuss Their Flop '97 Debuts," p. 28; Sept 11, 2000, review of Do You Know What I'll Do?, p.

89; January 15, 2001, review of A Pocketful cosy up Poems, p. 76; April 14, 2003, review of The Phonetician Family Express, pp. 69-70.

St. Prizefighter Post-Dispatch (St. Louis, MO), Feb 1, 1998, Babette Morgan, examination of In Daddy's Arms Mad Am Tall, p. D6.

School About Journal, February, 1998, Dawn Amsberry, review of In Daddy's Armed struggle I Am Tall, p.

118; September, 2000, Nina Lindsay, discussion of Do You Know What I'll Do?, p. 212; Hawthorn, 2001, Lauralyn Persson, review extent A Pocketful of Poems, holder. 141; July, 2003, Eve Statesman, review of The Jones Lineage Express, pp. 106-107.

ONLINE

Brooklyn Expedition, (April 6, 2004), "An Interview surrender Javaka Steptoe."

Charlotte Zolotow Home Page, (April 6, 2004).

Javaka Steptoe Straightforward Page, (February 16, 2004).

Lee & Low Books, (February 16, 2004), "BookTalk with Javaka Steptoe."*