Marie Hall Ets


Marie Hall Ets was an American writer and illustrator who is best known for children's picture books.

Life

Marie Hall Ets was born in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, on December 16, 1895. She attended Lawrence College. In 1918, she journeyed to Chicago where she became a social worker at the Chicago Commons, a settlement house on the northwest side of the city.
In 1960 Ets won the annual Caldecott Medal for her illustrations of Nine Days to Christmas, for which she also co-authored text with Aurora Labastida. Five of her titles were runners-up for that honor between 1945 and 1966, a record surpassed only by Maurice Sendak.
Just Me and In the Forest are both Caldecott Honor books. The black-and-white charcoal illustrations in Just Me "almost take on the appearance of woodcuts" and are similar in style to the illustrations in In the Forest. Constantine Georgiou comments in Children and Their Literature that Ets' "picture stories and easy-to-read books" "are filled with endearing and quaint human touches, putting them at precisely the right angle to life in early childhood." Play With Me, says Georgiou, is "a tender little tale, delicately illustrated in fragile pastels that echo the quiet mood of the story."
In 1970, her transcription of the autobiographical stories of Ines Cassettari, whom she met in Chicago in the years following World War I, was published as Rosa: The Life of an Italian Immigrant.
Ets died in Inverness, Florida, on January 17, 1984.

Selected works

Mister Penny The Story of a Baby, 1939In the Forest, 1944My Dog Rinty, 1946, by Ellen TerryOley, the Sea monster, 1947Little Old Automobile, 1948Mr. T. W. Anthony Woo: the story of a cat and a dog and a mouse, 1951Beasts and Nonsense, 1952Another Day, 1953Play With Me, 1955Mister Penny's Race Horse, 1956
  • Cow's Party, 1958Nine Days to Christmas, text with Aurora LabastidaMister Penny's Circus, 1961Gilberto and the Wind, 1963Automobiles for Mice, 1964Just Me, 1965Bad Boy, Good Boy, 1967Talking Without Words: I Can. Can You?, 1968Rosa, the Life of an Italian Immigrant, 1970; second edition, 1999, University of Wisconsin PressElephant in a Well, 1972Jay Bird, 1974