Amazon.com: A Picture Book of Jesse Owens (Picture Book Biography) (9780590494397): David A. Adler, Robert Casilla: Books

Book Description

Age Level: 6 and up | Grade Level: 1 and up | Series: Picture Book Biography

A sharecropper's son becomes a four-time Olympic gold medalist.

#outer_postBodyPS { display: none; } #psGradient { display: none; } #psPlaceHolder { display: none; } #psExpand { display: none; } A sharecropper's son becomes a four-time Olympic gold medalist.

Editorial Reviews

From School Library Journal

Grade 2-4-- Chronicling the life of a famous person such as Owens in approximately 25 pages, some with no text and the others with only a short paragraph or two, is a formidable task. Adler does as well as can be expected with these limitations. The portrait presented, although brief, is accurate and touches on the major events of the track-and-field champion's life. An interesting author note attempts to discern the facts from the fictional stories that exist concerning Owens's experiences during the 1936 Olympics in Berlin. Casilla contributes full-page watercolor paintings that nicely complement and expand the writing. Although containing hardly enough information for more than a brief report, this title meets the need of primary-grade children who are assigned or are interested in biographies. --Tom S. Hurlburt, La Crosse Public Library, WI
Copyright 1992 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

About the Author

David A. Adler's "Picture Book Biographies" have been hailed as an "expert mixture of facts and personality" (School Library Journal) and "handsomely designed" (Booklist). Mr. Adler is also the author of the "A First Biography" series for readers aged 7-11, as well as a number of novels and Judaica titles. He lives in New York with his wife and three sons.

Robert Casilla was born in Jersey City, New Jersey to parents from Puerto Rico. Like many children, Robert always loved to draw. As the new kid in his second grade class, he recalls doing a drawing of two birds with colored chalk on construction paper. His teacher noticed the drawing and then told the class, "We have an artist in the class!" Robert is thankful to her and all the teachers that motivated and helped him realize he had talent as an artist. Although he grew up in New Jersey, he did get to attend school in Puerto Rico as a fourth grader.

His formal training in art took place at the School of Visual Arts in New York City where he earned a BFA degree.

Since 1984, Robert has worked as a freelance illustrator for magazines, book publishers, postage stamps, educational publishers and others.

He has illustrated over 25 children's books, many of which are picture book biographies of people such as Martin Luther King, Jr., Jackie Robinson, Rosa Parks and John F. Kennedy. He has also illustrated many multicultural children's books such as Jalapeno Bagels, The Little Painter of Sabana Grande, The Legend of Mexicatl and First Day in Grapes which won the Pura Belpré Honor Award.

Robert visits many schools to talk about the visual journey a story takes him through to come up with the illustrations for his books. He also teaches art to young gifted artist one day a week.

Robert lives and works from his home in New Fairfield, Connecticut with his wife and two children, 3 cats and his feisty shih tzu dog.

More About the Author

› Visit Amazon's David A. Adler Page

I write both fiction and non-fiction. I begin my fiction with the main character. The story comes later. Of course, since I'll be spending a lot of time with each main character, why not have him or her be someone I like? Andy Russell is based, loosely, on a beloved member of my family. He's fun to write about and the boy who inspired the character is even more fun to know. Cam Jansen is based even more loosely on a classmate of mine in the first grade whom we all envied because we thought he had a photographic memory. Now, especially when my children remind me of some promise they said I made, I really envy Cam's amazing memory. I have really enjoyed writing about Cam Jansen and her many adventures. For my books of non-fiction I write about subjects I find fascinating. My first biography was Our Golda: The Life of Golda Meir. To research that book, I bought a 1905 set of encyclopedia. Those books told me what each of the places Golda Meir lived in were like when she lived there. I've written many other biographies, including books about Martin Luther King, Jr; George Washington; Abraham Lincoln; Helen Keller; Harriet Tubman; Anne Frank; and many others in my Picture Book Biography series. I've been a Yankee and a Lou Gehrig fan for decades so I wrote Lou Gehrig: The Luckiest Man. It's more the story of his great courage than his baseball playing. Children face all sorts of challenges and it's my hope that some will be inspired by the courage of Lou Gehrig. I am working now on another book about a courageous man, Janusz Korczak. My book One Yellow Daffodil is fiction, too, but it's based on scores of interviews I did with Holocaust survivors for my books We Remember the Holocaust, Child of the Warsaw Ghetto, The Number on My Grandfather's Arm, and Hiding from the Nazis. The stories I heard were compelling. One Yellow Daffodil is both a look to the past and to the future, and expresses my belief in the great spirit and strength of our children. I love math and was a math teacher for many years, so it was fun for me to write several math books including Fraction Fun, Calculator Riddles, and Shape Up! Fun with Triangles and Other Polygons. In my office I have this sign, "Don't Think. Just Write!" and that's how I work. I try not to worry about each word, even each sentence or paragraph. For me stories evolve. Writing is a process. I rewrite each sentence, each manuscript, many times. And I work with my editors. I look forward to their suggestions, their help in the almost endless rewrite process. Well, it's time to get back to dreaming, and to writing, my dream of a job. David A. Adler is the author of more than 175 children's books, including the Young Cam Jansen series. He lives in Woodmere, New York.