#Ronni Solbert

[uwmspeccoll]

SUNDAY FUNDAY

Celebrating Black History Month!

Bronzeville Boys and Girls by American poet Gwendolyn Brooks and illustrated by the prolific American illustrator Ronni Solbert is the Historical Curriculum Collection book we are sharing with you this fine Sunday Funday. 

Gwendolyn Brooks published her first book in 1945, A Street in Bronzeville, which earned her a Guggenheim Fellowship. Her second book, Annie Allen, won Brooks a Pulitzer Prize for Poetry in 1950, making her the first African American to win the award. Bronzeville Boys and Girls, published by Harper in 1956, was her first book for children, set in the same urban landscape of the Chicago neighborhood she grew up in, the South Side of Chicago, where Bronzeville is located. The description on the back of our first edition notes that the book offers “timeless poems, which remind us that whether we live in the Bronzeville section of Chicago or any other neighborhood, childhood is universal in its richness of emotions and new experiences.” Literary and cultural writer Maria Popova notes the socio-political impact of a book about black children being published in 1956: 

Considering that even today only 3% of children’s books feature characters of color, the collection was a revolutionary act of creative courage in its era, a decade before the peak of the civil rights movement. It granted a generation of children the tremendous gift of being seen, of having the validity of their experience mirrored back by the page, of being assured that they belong in literature and art.

The book was illustrated by Ronni Solbert, an illustrator, painter, sculptor, and photographer who studied folk and tribal art in India on a Fulbright Scholarship. Solbert and Brooks were brought together by Ursula Nordstrom, editor in chief of the Department of Books for Boys and Girls at Harper Publishing. 

The 2007 HarperCollins reissue of Bronzeville Boys and Girls, with vibrantly colorful illustrations by Faith Ringgold, stands in stark contrast to the black and white line imagery of Solbert, but Solbert’s illustrations remain iconic, as Ringgold’s will surely become.

Watch this video produced by River Forest Public Library about Gwendolyn Brooks! In it you can see the reissue briefly!

View our post on Gwendolyn Brooks’s tribute to Martin Luther King, Jr.

View our other Black History Month posts.

View more Sunday Funday posts!

-Claire, Special Collections Graduate Intern

#Sunday Funday #Black History Month #claire #Bronzeville Boys and Girls #Gwendolyn Brooks #Bronzeville #Ronni Solbert #Ursula Nordstrom #Harper Publishing #Maria Popova #Faith Ringgold #First African American Pulitzer Prize Winner #poetry #Historical Curriculum Collection #children's books #illustrated books

[anniekoh]

The Pushcart War: 50th Anniversary Edition Written by Jean Merrill. Illustrated by Ronni Solbert (2014)

“The Pushcart War started on the afternoon of March 15, 2026, when a truck ran down a pushcart belonging to a flower peddler.”

As I mentioned in my essay for https://www.thebooksmugglers.com/2018/10/the-right-to-the-city-urbanism-planning-and-cities-in-science-fiction-and-fantasy.html

As a kid, I obsessively reread The Pushcart War, a children’s book about traffic jams, municipal politics and the power of the underdog. I yearned to buy a pickle from a street vendor and wished I could grow up to become a Pushcart Queen (even though my suburban town prohibited sidewalk vending). The book probably factored into my decision to become an urban planner.

https://kidslitreview.com/2014/08/26/640-the-pushcart-war-50th-anniversary-edition-by-jean-merrill-ronni-solbert/

https://usa.streetsblog.org/2018/06/04/the-streetsblog-guide-to-childrens-books/

#to read #children's books #new york city #street vendor #public space

[sneevish]

“Every time a small car came along the road where the elephant lived, the elephant would jump on the car.”⁠ From “The Elephant Who Liked To Smash Small Cars” by Jean Merrill and Ronni Solbert. ⁠ ~⁠ #theelephantwholikedtosmashsmallcars #jeanmerrill #ronnisolbert #thenewyorkreviewofbooks #1962 #picturebook #kidlit #childrensfiction #picturebookillustration #picturebooks #picturebookstagram #childrensbook #kidlitart #picturebooksofinstagram https://www.instagram.com/p/CY993-mvC5G/?utm_medium=tumblr

#theelephantwholikedtosmashsmallcars #jeanmerrill #ronnisolbert #thenewyorkreviewofbooks #1962 #picturebook #kidlit #childrensfiction #picturebookillustration #picturebooks #picturebookstagram #childrensbook #kidlitart #picturebooksofinstagram

[honeyburn-books]

1974 Shan’s Lucky Knife (A Burmese Folk Tale) Jean Merrill illustrated by Ronni Solbert #antiquarian #illustration_daily #bookshelf #antiquarianbookshop #americanantiquarian #illustration #illustrations #booksbooksbooks #childrenseemagic #childrensbooks #books #illustrationart #illustrationartists #bookshelves #childrensbook #childrensfashion #bookstore #childrens #antiquarianbook #books📚 #illustrationartist #antiquarianbooks #bookstagram #burma #folktale #jeanmerrill #ronnisolbert https://www.instagram.com/p/B4zwKfypZ5M/?igshid=ecjjiwz2d2sl

#antiquarian #illustration_daily #bookshelf #antiquarianbookshop #americanantiquarian #illustration #illustrations #booksbooksbooks #childrenseemagic #childrensbooks #books #illustrationart #illustrationartists #bookshelves #childrensbook #childrensfashion #bookstore #childrens #antiquarianbook #books📚 #illustrationartist #antiquarianbooks #bookstagram #burma #folktale #jeanmerrill #ronnisolbert

[nyrbclassics]

Remember the time we tried to pass off emojis as marketing copy for The Elephant Who Liked to Smash Small Cars? 

Jean Merrill and Ronni Solbert’s book about a little elephant who gets taught a big lesson went on sale this week.

#The Elephant Who Liked to Smash Small Cars #Jean Merrill #Ronni Solbert #New York Review Children's Collection

[sneevish]

“She says, ‘Don’t worry. Who would suspect an old lady of putting a pea-pin in a tire? If anyone asks me why I am bending over in the street, I tell them that I am looking for a hat pin that I have dropped under the truck.’” From “The Pushcart Wars” by Jean Merrill, illustrated by Ronni Solbert. I loved this chapter book, which is written exactly like solemn long-form narrative nonfiction (“Although “Don’t be a truck” is an expression that we all use today, it dates back to Phase Two of the Pea Shooter Campaign...”). @melodious_b and @foodformarriage I believe you both recommended this, thank you! https://www.instagram.com/p/Bv1BCLqnWyt/?igshid=v0iwcqznzqsh

[nyrbclassics]

The Pushcart War had a profound impact on me; when I was a kid I devoured it several times, and I’ve carried it deep inside me ever since. The book gave me a point of entrance—my first, I imagine—into the world of resistance to political and economic injustice and chicanery. It made opposition, even non-violent civil disobedience, seem fun and right and necessary and heroic, and something even someone as powerless as a kid could and should undertake.

—Tony Kushner

The New York Review Children's Collection 50th Anniversary edition of Jean Merrill's classic The Pushcart War,  illustrated by Ronni Solbert, hits bookstore shelves this week! 

#The Pushcart War #Jean Merrill #Ronni Solbert #The New York Review Children's Collection #Tony Kushner