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Richard McClure Scarry (June 5, 1919 – April 30, 1994) was an American children's author and illustrator who published over 300 books with total sales of over 100 million worldwide.[1] He is best known for his Best Ever book series that take place primarily in the fictional town of Busytown, "which is populated by friendly and helpful resident [animals...such as] Mr. Frumble, Huckle Cat, Mr. Fixit, Lowly Worm, and others..."[2] The series spawned a media franchise.

Richard Scarry
BornRichard McClure Scarry
(1919-06-05)June 5, 1919
Boston, Massachusetts, U.S.
DiedApril 30, 1994(1994-04-30) (aged 74)
Gstaad, Switzerland
OccupationAuthor, illustrator
GenreChildren's books
Notable worksBest Word Book Ever
SpousePatricia Murphy
Children1

Early life and education


Scarry was born in Boston, Massachusetts to Mary McClure and John Scarry Sr., who were of Irish-American ancestry and ran a small department store chain.[3][4] Scarry had four siblings: older brother John Jr., younger sister, Barbara, and younger brothers, Edward and Leo.[5] The family enjoyed a comfortable life at their 32 Melville Avenue home in the Dorchester neighborhood,[5] even during the Great Depression.

Following high school, Scarry enrolled in Boston Business School, but dropped out in 1938.[6][7] He then studied at the School of the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston, the Archipenko Art School in Woodstock, New York, and the Eliot O'Hara Watercolor School in Goose Rocks, Kennebunkport, Maine,[8] before being drafted into the U.S. Army in 1942.


Career


After entering the Army, Scarry was assigned to the military's radio repair school. After a small success in that trade, he was chosen to paint a large sign and then made an art director after receiving a medical dispensation "from strenuous physical activity". Later he became "Editor and Writer of Publications for the Information and Morale Services Section of the Allied Force Headquarters", served in North Africa, and was discharged from the Army in 1946.[7][9] After the war, Scarry worked in magazine and advertising in New York City, including a very brief stint at Vogue. In 1949, he made a career breakthrough with Little Golden Books.[7]

Scarry's most famous series of books was about Busytown and revolved around anthropomorphic animals. While his books are largely populated by common animal species, he proved to be quite adept at giving human characteristics to a seemingly endless number of creatures, machines, and creations. Many of his later illustrations feature characters in traditional Swiss clothing and show architecturally correct drawings of half-timber houses.

The fabric of Scarry's world was woven with a strong sense of community and cooperation. His characters work together, be it building a house or constructing a highway. And he endowed his characters with an honest humanity that underscores his tales. Scarry knew children needed to know that they did not have to be perfect all the time.

— [10]

Scarry was a disciplined worker.[7] Scarry was closely associated with mass-market children's publisher Ole Risom. They worked together on dozens of books, including I Am a Bunny, which Risom wrote and Scarry illustrated. First published in 1963, it is still in print.[11] Risom and Walter Retan also co-wrote the illustrated biography, The Busy, Busy World of Richard Scarry.[12] In the 1980s and 1990s, many of Scarry's Best Ever books were produced as animated videos and aired during TLC's now-defunct Ready Set Learn block. The Busytown books were also adapted into an animated series, The Busy World of Richard Scarry, which was produced by Canada-based CINAR (now WildBrain) and Paramount Television and aired on the pay-TV channel Showtime from 1993 to 1997. It reran in the late 1990s on Nickelodeon and its sister channel Noggin (now Nick Jr.). A further animated series, Busytown Mysteries, was commissioned by CBC from the Cookie Jar Group (the successor to CINAR) in 2007, and airs on the Kids' CBC morning program block.

Busytown was featured at the Carnegie Museums of Pittsburgh from June 13 to September 8, 2002, in an interactive exhibit, Richard Scarry's Busytown.[13] His books were popular with children throughout the world with over 100 million copies sold.[1]

From 1976 to around 1978, Playskool planned Richard Scarry's Puzzletown, a series of toy sets featuring plastic figures of Scarry characters and vehicles as well as cardboard scenery that the child could set up in a grid of trenches in a plastic base.[14][15]


Changes to Best Word Book Ever


A snapshot of Scarry's illustration style from the book Busy, Busy Town.
A snapshot of Scarry's illustration style from the book Busy, Busy Town.

Books by Richard Scarry were revised over the course of their several editions, often to make them conform to changing social values. His Best Word Book Ever, which first introduced in 1963, was issued in 1980 as a "new revised edition" which altered images and text to remove material which could be perceived as offensive due to gender, ethnic, or religious misconceptions. Characters in "cowboy" or "Indian" costumes were either removed or given nondescript clothing. Moral and religious elements and depictions of gender roles were altered or removed (for instance, Jewish object menorah was added into a Christmas scene, and the words "he comes promptly when he is called to breakfast", referring to a father bear, were changed to "he goes to the kitchen to eat his breakfast"). Characters engaged in activities reflecting traditional gender roles were altered so as to make the scenes more gender-neutral (e.g., a male character was added into a kitchen scene, a cowboy was replaced with a female gardener and a female scientist, the phrase "pretty stewardess" was changed to "flight attendant", and male characters engaged in traditionally masculine activities such as driving a steamroller were altered into female characters by the addition of hair bows or pink flowers, etc.). In some cases these changes necessitated removing whole sections altogether, including the "Out West" section, the "buildings" section (which had depicted a church, a cathedral, and a French Foreign Legion fortress), and sections on painting and music making.[16][17]

Scarry's papers and drawings are collected in the University of Connecticut archives.[18]


Personal life and family


While working as a free-lance illustrator, Scarry met Patricia "Patsy" Murphy, a writer of children's textbooks, when they collaborated on one such book, and they married in 1948.[7] She is credited with writing many of the stories in his subsequent children's books, such as Good Night, Little Bear, The Bunny Book, and The Fishing Cat. Before moving to Europe, the family lived on a farm in Ridgefield, Connecticut.[19]

In 1972, Scarry and his wife moved to Lausanne, Switzerland, and in 1974 bought a chalet in nearby Gstaad, where Scarry enjoyed spending time with his adult son, Richard Scarry Jr.; skiing; coin collecting; and sailing.[20][10][21]

Scarry's son is also an illustrator who sometimes works under the name Huck Scarry in his father's style. He moved to Vienna, Austria and has four children.[3][20][22]


Death


On 30 April 1994, in Gstaad, Switzerland, Scarry died of a heart attack, caused by complications from esophageal cancer.[1][7]


Bibliography


Scarry began his book career in 1949 as an illustrator of books by other people, specifically Kathryn & Byron Jackson's Mouse's House. He continued as only or primarily an illustrator through 1955, then began turning out original books.

His titles, in order of publication, are:[2]

Golden Books

Random House

Golden Books

Random House

Golden Books

Random House

Many of these titles are preceded by his name ("Richard Scarry's ..."), and may be so listed in library and booksellers' databases. Some (Pie Rats Ahoy!, Best Mistake Ever! and The Early Bird) were published under the Beginner Books (Grolier and Early Moments only) imprint, and others (Chuckle with Huckle! and Other Easy-to-Read Funny Stories and The Worst Helper Ever [Early Moments only]) as Bright and Early Books, although all are targeted at beginning readers. Scarry also illustrated a 1963 edition of The Fables of La Fontaine, and in 1993 put his own stamp on a series of familiar nursery stories (Little Red Riding Hood, The Little Red Hen, The Three Bears, The Three Little Pigs).


Stories made to video


Golden Book Videos:

Random House Videos: (by 2006 these were taken out of print)

Richard Scarry's:

PolyGram Videos:

The Busy World of Richard Scarry:

Richard Scarry's:


References


  1. Pace, Eric (3 May 1994). "Richard Scarry, 74, Children's Book Author and Illustrator, Dies". New York Times. Archived from the original on 2 December 2017. Retrieved 5 February 2022.
  2. Liukkonen, Petri. "Richard Scarry". Books and Writers (kirjasto.sci.fi). Finland: Kuusankoski Public Library. Archived from the original on 2 January 2008.
  3. Stevenson, Alice (December 9, 2019). "Meet Busytown's Favorite Son, Huck Scarry". New York Historical Society. Archived from the original on 2021-11-17. Retrieved 2021-11-16.
  4. Mapes, Melissa (July 1, 2012). Richard Scarry’s Best Luck Ever. Literary Traveller.
  5. 1940 U.S. Census, familysearch.com
  6. American National Biography. Vol. 19. Oxford University Press. 1999. p. 350.
  7. Branwen, Gwern. "Richard Scarry". Archived from the original on 2021-09-21. Retrieved 2021-11-16.
  8. Dinneen, Marcia B. (2000). "Scarry, Richard McClure (05 June 1919–30 April 1994)". American National Biography. doi:10.1093/anb/9780198606697.article.1603321. Archived from the original on 12 October 2022. Retrieved 2021-11-16.
  9. "A Guide to the Richard Scarry Papers". Retrieved 2021-11-16.
  10. Owens, Darryl E. (September 23, 1995). "Scarry's talent: Finding magic in the mundane"". Orlando Sentinel. Archived from the original on 2022-04-17. Retrieved 2021-11-16.
  11. Lipson, E. R. (August 24, 2000). "Ole C. Risom, 80, Publisher of Children's Books". The New York Times. Archived from the original on November 19, 2016. Retrieved February 18, 2017.
  12. Retan, Walter; Ole Risom (1997). The Busy, Busy World of Richard Scarry. Harry N. Abrams. ISBN 9780810940000.
  13. "Carnegie Science Center". Carnegie Magazine. Archived from the original on 2008-10-12 – via carnegiemuseums.org.
  14. "Second Generation of Fun". wandering-scientist.com. Archived from the original on 2013-06-23. Retrieved 2013-02-23.
  15. "Richard Scarry's Puzzletown". CrescentStar.blogspot.com. 14 April 2011. Archived from the original on 11 March 2016. Retrieved 23 February 2013.
  16. Wade, Lisa (22 September 2010). "Social Change and Richard Scarry's Best Word Book Ever". The Society Pages. Archived from the original on 10 October 2014. Retrieved 7 August 2017.
  17. Taylor, Alan (23 November 2005). "The Best Word Book Ever, 1963 and 1991". Flickr. Archived from the original on 22 October 2013. Retrieved 16 October 2013.
  18. "A Guide to the Richard Scarry Papers". collections.ctdigitalarchive.org. Retrieved 2016-10-18.
  19. Sanders, Jack (2015). Hidden History of Ridgefield, Connecticut. Arcadia Publishing. p. 73.
  20. Simon, Scott (August 23, 2014). "Lowly Worm Is Back! Richard Scarry Jr. Brings Dad's Manuscript To Life". National Public Radio. Archived from the original on 2021-09-29. Retrieved 2021-10-16.
  21. Munier, Alexis (September 10, 2015). "His Father's Son -- Huck Scarry on his Family's Past, Present & Future". GstaadLife. Archived from the original on September 29, 2021. Retrieved March 17, 2021.
  22. Blasberg, Derek (August 14, 2009). "Olympia Scarry". Interview Magazine. Archived from the original on 2021-09-29. Retrieved 2021-11-16.
  23. "3 Richard Scarry Animal Nursery Tales (Video 1986)". IMDb. 1986. Archived from the original on 2022-07-12. Retrieved 2018-06-30.
  24. "Richard Scarry's Old MacDonald's Farm and Other Animal Tales (Video 1986)". IMDb. 1986. Archived from the original on 2022-07-12. Retrieved 2018-06-30.
  25. "Get Ready for School (Video 1986)". IMDb. 1986. Archived from the original on 2022-07-12. Retrieved 2018-06-30.
  26. "Best ABC Video Ever! (Video 1989)". IMDb. 15 March 1989. Archived from the original on 10 February 2017. Retrieved 30 June 2018.
  27. "Best Counting Video Ever! (Video 1989)". IMDb. 31 August 1989. Archived from the original on 10 February 2017. Retrieved 30 June 2018.
  28. "Best Busy People Video Ever! (Video 1993)". IMDb. 17 August 1993. Archived from the original on 8 February 2017. Retrieved 30 June 2018.
  29. "Best Learning Songs Video Ever! (Video 1993)". IMDb. 17 August 1993. Archived from the original on 9 February 2017. Retrieved 30 June 2018.
  30. "Best Silly Stories and Songs Video Ever! (Video 1994)". IMDb. 23 August 1994. Archived from the original on 19 March 2017. Retrieved 30 June 2018.
  31. "Best Sing-Along Mother Goose Video Ever! (Video 1994)". IMDb. 23 August 1994. Archived from the original on 25 March 2017. Retrieved 30 June 2018.



На других языках

[de] Richard Scarry

Richard McClure Scarry [.mw-parser-output .IPA a{text-decoration:none}ˈskæri] (* 5. Juni 1919 in Boston, Massachusetts; † 30. April 1994 in Gstaad), war ein Kinderbuchautor und Illustrator, der über 300 Bücher veröffentlicht hat, wovon weltweit über 300 Millionen Exemplare verkauft wurden.
- [en] Richard Scarry

[ru] Скарри, Ричард

Ричард МакКлюр Скарри (англ. Richard McClure Scarry) — популярный американский детский писатель и иллюстратор, написавший около 300 книг общим числом продаж приблизительно 100 млн экземпляров по всему миру[1]. Некоторые из них переведены на русский язык[2].


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