Imaginative - Having a lively imagination, especially a creative imagination that is able to think of something new.

Ezra Jack Keats’ birthday is on March 11th.

Caldecott Award-winning author/illustrator Ezra Jack Keats (1916-1983) was born Jacob Ezra Katz in Brooklyn, New York, to an impoverished Polish-Jewish immigrant family. He grew up wanting to be an artist, despite the discouragement of his father, Benjamin, who worried that Ezra would be unable to support himself. Tragically, Benjamin died the day before Ezra’s high school graduation. It was then, as he was going through Benjamin’s personal effects, that Ezra made a bittersweet discovery: “I found myself staring deep into his [my father’s] secret feelings. There in his wallet were worn and tattered newspaper clippings of the notices of the awards I had won. My silent admirer …, he had been torn between his dread of my leading a life of hardship and his real pride in my work.”

Unable to afford college, Ezra worked odd jobs while studying art on the side. Following a hitch in the Army during World War II (after which he changed his name to avoid anti-Semitism), Ezra studied in Paris, then began a career as an illustrator. By 1954, he was illustrating children’s picture books and beginning to write. His ground-breaking series about Peter, a young black boy, introduced multi-culturalism into mainstream publishing and won him a 1963 Caldecott Medal for The Snowy Day. Ezra said: “None of the manuscripts I’d been illustrating featured any black kids [as heroes]. … My book would have him there simply because he should have been there all along.”

Despite subsequent fame and fortune, Ezra stayed true to his vision, traveling, teaching, illustrating, and promoting children’s literacy and artistry. And, though childless himself, he left a legacy for kids: the Ezra Jack Keats Foundation, which provides scholarships, sponsors artistic events, and encourages young artists.