Norwalk-Native Author Takes Part in National Book Festival
BOOKS KELLOGG
Norwalk Hour
Katerina Voutsina
Boston University Washington News Service
09/26/2009
WASHINGTON – The rainy weather Saturday did not stop more than 130,000 people from flocking to the National Mall in downtown Washington for the 9th annual National Book Festival. Adults and children pushed into the Children’s Pavilion where on the podium Steven Kellogg, 67, the author and illustrator of nearly 90 children’s books sketched quickly a strange creature on a paper board.
“It is a guy whose head is on his toes and he talks with his rear end,” Kellogg, who was born in Norwalk in 1941, explained. The crowd burst into laughter. Young kids giggled and flocked around him to see the drawing.
“And this guy is going to be in my story,” Kellogg said.
Kellogg’s gag was part of the presentation of the “Exquisite Corpse Adventure,” a serial story written online by children’s book authors and hosted at the website of the Library of Congress. Every two weeks a new episode will be added in the story by a different writer.
More than 70 authors and illustrators made appearances during the day at one of the six pavilions representing different categories of books and later autographed copies of their books at the book signing area. The festival, sponsored by the Library of Congress and held on the National Mall between the Capitol and the Washington Monument, was started in 2001 by First Lady Laura Bush.
A teacher from suburban Maryland stopped Kellogg as he was on his way to the book signing area and told him her students try to imitate his style. “Your illustrations are amazing,” she said.
Kellogg, in an interview later in the day, said that he left Norwalk at the age of seven when his parents moved to the town of Darien. Today, Kellogg lives in an old farmhouse at the town of Essex, N.Y., overlooking Lake Champlain. He said his studio is in the old barn behind his house.
“One of my warmest and most satisfying memories,” Kellogg said of his childhood, were the hours before bedtime when his parents and grandparents read aloud to him. He said he soon began creating his own stories and shared them with his sisters, Patti and Martha.
He remembers growing up always having a stack of paper on his lap scribbling illustrations. “It amuses me to look back over my life, because I realize that I made very little progress,” he said laughing. “I am still telling stories on paper and at the age of 67 I am having as much fun doing it now, as I did when I was six.”
Kellogg said he loves drawing animals and was very much inspired by Beatrix Potter, the British artist and author best known for her Peter Rabbit character. He said he loves the intimacy of her writings and the gentle sense of her humor.
“The illustrations of Beatrix Potter were very naturalistic and very appealing to me,” Kellogg said. “Her writing was so accessible. It draws the young reader in.”
Kellogg, a graduate of the Rhode Island School of Design, said early in his career he started illustrating books written by other authors. He was living in Washington, D.C., teaching etching at American University and exhibiting his paintings at a gallery in Georgetown, when he started submitting a story idea to publishing houses every few months. But it took him a year to pitch his first full book to a publisher, he said.
Kellogg said that large children’s books – like his own – create a theater on your lap. “When you turn the page it is like you are raising the curtain; you introduce your children to a new world,” he said.
Kellogg—who married Helen Hill, a divorced mother of six children—said as the children were growing up he used their feedback when he was writing his stories. Kellogg said the children they raised together are now in their 40s and he has grandchildren. One of his grandsons lives in Washington and Kellogg said he planned to have dinner with him Saturday night.
The National Book Festival is a great opportunity, Kellogg said, “for parents, children, authors and publishers to celebrate the joy of reading.”
When autographing books, Kellogg said, it is very moving to see books that have been read many times. “You write the books, the audience absorbs them and bring them back to you. The cycle is complete.”
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