Crockett Johnson and Ruth Krauss: How an Unlikely Couple Found Love, Dodged the FBI, and Transformed Children's Literature

Acknowledgments

341 Acknowledgments You should tell the audience when to clap, if they don’t know. One way is to start clapping yourself. —Ruth Krauss, “A Few Rules for Giving a Show,” How to Make an Earthquake (1954) I began this project in 1999. There are a lot of people to thank. I am particularly grateful to those who shared their time and memories of Ruth and Dave, especially Maurice Sendak, a frequent collaborator and weekend guest in the 1950s who knew them well; Nina Stagakis, the daughter of their good friends who became like a daughter to them; the late Mary Elting Folsom, who knew Dave and his first wife in the 1930s; Betty Hahn, the wife of Ruth’s late cousin, Richard, who remained very close to her throughout her life; and the late Else Frank, Dave’s sister and my sole witness to his childhood. Maurice and Nina not only answered many questions but even read an early draft of part of the manuscript. For sharing memories of, correspondence from, or other information about Crockett Johnson or Ruth Krauss, I thank Leone Adelson, Isabella Blake, Miriam Bourdette, Pat Brooks, Gail Cathey, Ina Chadwick, Remy Charlip, Sas Colby, Bernadine Cook, Norman Corwin, Jackie Curtis, Karen Curtis, Bianca Czaderna, Gene Deitch, Barbara Dicks, Sally Dimon, Jon Ehrlich, Dallas Ernst, Anne Eyes, David Eyes, Frank Fay, Jules Feiffer, Sally Fisher, Harley Flanders, Antonio Frasconi, Miguel Frasconi, Pablo Frasconi, Valerie Harms, Peggy Heinrich, Bet Hennefrund, David Hilberman, Susan Carr Hirschman, Syd Hoff, Ann Holmes, Lee Hopkins, Tom Hopps, Roussie Jacksina, Amy Kaiman, Leonard Kessler, Binnie Klein, Henry F. Klein, Mark Kramer, Sidney Kramer, Janet Krauss,Sidney Landau,Amos Landman,Emily Levine,Grace Lichtenstein, Sid and Doris Lund, A. B. Magil, Harry Marinsky, Ann McGovern, Bob and Helen McNell,Harriet McKissock,Alice McMahon,Elisabeth Merrett,Ben Gray Moore, Ben Gray Moore Jr., Ralph Nazareth,Wendy Newton, Maureen O’Hara, Doris Orgel, Fran Pollak, Lilian Moore Reavin, Anna Reinhardt, Dan Richter, 342 Acknowledgments Mischa Richter, Andy Rooney, Marge Rooney, Gilbert Rose, Warren Sattler, Morton Schindel, Marion Schnabel, Elizabeth Schneider, Gene Searchinger, Dale Shaw, Norma Simon, Marc Simont,Vicki Smith, Howard Sparber, Shelley Trubowitz, Peter Wang, Joanna Czaderna Wood, and Charlotte Zolotow. For reading and commenting on portions of this work, I thank Todd Hignite (of Comic Art), Stephen Roxburgh and Katya Rice (of Front Street), Jennifer A. Hughes, Karin Westman, and the anonymous readers for Children’s Literature 29 (2001). For some creative-writing wisdom, I thank Katy Karlin. For excellent suggestions (many of which I’ve used) on how to revise the first five paragraphs, I thank Dan Steffan. I could not have gained glimpses into the early lives of Crockett Johnson and Ruth Krauss without the generous assistance of Linda Graetz, Harold Frank, David Frank, and Lani Frank. Many people have been extraordinarily generous with their time and knowledge. J. B. Stroud, who is the expert on Crockett Johnson’s mathematical paintings shared his vast knowledge. Leonard Marcus, an experienced navigator of the thickets of biographical research, has provided invaluable guidance on many occasions. My agent, George Nicholson, offered this project his enthusiastic support, read and offered suggestions to improve the first complete draft, and helped find it a home. Particular thanks go to Kate Jackson, who granted me access to HarperCollins’s archives, and to Stewart I. Edelstein and Monte E. Frank, who granted me access to materials held by the Estate of Ruth Krauss and who have granted me permission to reproduce Johnson’s and Krauss’s works. I’m grateful to many others who granted me access to archival material , especially Peggy Kidwell (Smithsonian Institution), Wendy Wick Reaves and Amy Baskette (Smithsonian National Portrait Gallery), Terri Goldich and Wendy Hennequin (Dodd Research Center, University of Connecticut, Storrs), Tzofit Goldfarb (HarperCollins Publishers), and John Hyslop (Long Island Division, Queens Borough Public Library). Other people and institutions also very kindly permitted me to examine archival material: Bob E. Rutan (Macy’s Annual Events); Donna L. Davey and Andrew H. Lee (Tamiment Library, New York University); Daniel Sokolow, Rimma Skorupsky, and Susan Gormley (McGraw-Hill); Emilyn L. Brown (New York University Archives); Iris Snyder (Special Collections, University of Delaware Library); Kathleen Manwaring (Special Collections, Syracuse University Library); Bill Santin (Columbia University); Jocelyn K. Wilk (Columbiana Library, Columbia University Archives); Bill Kimmel and 343 Acknowledgments X. Theodore Barber (Parsons School of Design); Bob Giles (Nieman Foundation for Journalism, Harvard University); Brian...