Daly, Jude 1951-

(Jude Kenny)

Personal

Born August 24, 1951, in London, England; married Niki Daly (a writer and illustrator); children: Joseph, Leo. Education: Attended Cape Technical College. Hobbies and other interests: Music, art, "the quirkiness of people."

Addresses

Home and office—Cape Town, South Africa.

Career

Illustrator.

Awards, Honors

Children's Book of Distinction selection, Hungry Mind Review, 1994, for The Dove, by Dianne Stewart; Smithsonian magazine Notable Book designation, and International Board on Books for Young People Honor listee, both 1996, Notable Children's Trade Book designation, and Katrine Harris Award for illustration, both 1997, all for Gift of the Sun, by Stewart; Katrine Harris Award, 2003, for The Stone, by Dianne Hofmeyr.

Writings

SELF-ILLUSTRATED

Fair, Brown, and Trembling: An Irish Cinderella Story, Farrar, Straus & Giroux (New York, NY), 2000.

ILLUSTRATOR

Dianne Stewart, The Dove, Greenwillow (New York, NY), 1993.

Dianne Hofmeyr, Do the Whales Still Sing?, Dial (New York, NY), 1995.

Dianne Stewart, Gift of the Sun: A Tale from South Africa, Farrar, Straus & Giroux (New York, NY), 1996.

Rachelle Greef, Enebene en die ander, Juta (Cape Town, South Africa), 1996.

Dianne Hofmeyr, The Stone: A Persian Legend of the Magi, Farrar, Straus & Giroux (New York, NY), 1998.

Dianne Hofmeyr, The Star-Bearer: A Creation Myth from Ancient Egypt, Farrar, Straus & Giroux (New York, NY), 2001.

Sheron Williams, Imani's Music, Atheneum (New York, NY), 2002.

Diana Reynolds Roome, The Elephant's Pillow, Farrar, Straus & Giroux (New York, NY), 2003.

Nancy Willard, The Tale of Paradise Lost, Atheneum (New York, NY), 2004.

To Every Thing There Is a Season, Eerdmans (Grand Rapids, MI), 2006.

Sidelights

Born in England, Jude Daly moved with her family to Cape Town, South Africa, as a child. With an interest in art, she attended college to study graphic design, but left before she finished her degree. "In retrospect it was a good thing as it meant I never mastered being slick and I hope my work reflects this," the illustrator noted on South African Children's Literature News online. Often employing stylized, folk-art motifs, Daly has found success creating illustrations for children's book authors such as Dianne Hofmeyr, Diana Reynolds Roome, and Nancy Willard. Many of the picture books that feature her work—including her first title, The Dove, by South African writer Dianne Stewart—are set in South Africa. Daly has also worked on Stewart's Gift of the Sun: A Tale from South Africa, an original folk tale about a lazy farmer, creating "wonderfully detailed domestic scenes" situated "on the curve of the rolling earth," according to Hazel Rochman, writing in Booklist. While a Publishers Weekly reviewer cited Daly's "comically detailed" images as echoing "the same playfulness" as Stewart's narrative, in Horn Book Martha V. Parravano maintained that the artist's "expansive, extrawide horizontal illustrations take in the whole sweep of the rather austere [South African] landscape."

In Do the Whales Still Sing, which Daly illustrated for Hofmeyr, a tale of environmentalism and peace is complemented by gouache paintings that "match the text's elements of boldness and restraint," according to a Publishers Weekly critic. Daly and Hofmeyr team up again for The Stone: A Persian Legend of the Magi and The Star-Bearer: A Creation Myth from Ancient Egypt. In reviewing The Stone, Booklist critic Helen Rosenberg maintained that Daly's "detailed, mystical illustrations" effectively bring to life the story's exotic Persian setting. Of the illustrations for The Star-Bearer, Ilene Cooper wrote in Booklist that "Daly's characters look as if they've stepped from hieroglyphics." According to a Publishers Weekly contributor, the illustrator's "stylized, willowy figures shine against elegant backgrounds."

In another of Daly's illustration projects, Sheron Williams's Imani's Music, she brings to life an original folktale about an African grasshopper named Imani who is given the gift of music. The grasshopper takes music from Africa onto a slave ship, and thence to the New World. According to Natasha K. Woods, writing in the Black Issues Book Review, "Daly's illustrations are painterly in their use of color, with broad vivid land and seascapes depicting the world as seen through Imani's eyes on both sides of the Atlantic." The Elephant's Pillow, another folktale-like original story, is set in Peking, China, and features a young boy who helps to charm the Imperial elephant to sleep. "The illustrations are the very best part of this tale," exclaimed a Kirkus Reviews contributor.

Moving from folktales to more classical works, Daly's "small, occasional, delicately detailed paintings" appear alongside Nancy Willard's text in The Tale of Paradise Lost, a simplified version of John Milton's classic poem, "adding a sort of distant elegance," according to a Kirkus Reviews contributor. The artist "creates a visual feast in her landscapes of Eden," commented a Publishers Weekly critic. Daly's art is also paired with scripture from the King James version of the biblical Book of Ecclesiastes and published as To Everything There Is a Season. Daly's choice of a "rural South African setting … skillfully illuminates each pair of contrasting concepts," wrote a Kirkus Reviews contributor. Although the setting is specific, the words retain their resonance; as John Stewig noted in Booklist, the book's "opening spread, stretching to the edge of the pages, suggests a global view of the world."

Moving from artist to author, Daly is also the illustrator of an original retelling of a familiar tale in Fair, Brown, and Trembling: An Irish Cinderella Story. Hoping to avoid continued mistreatment at the hands of her older sisters, Fair and Brown, Trembling turns to an elderly henwife to help her find a suitable husband at Sunday Mass. The beautiful young woman finally catches the eye of Prince Emania, and he willingly competes against many other suitors in order to win Trembling's hand in marriage. Daly's "lush, pastoral paintings add depth and charm to a Cinderella variant folktale from the Emerald Isle," wrote a Publishers Weekly contributor, while Hazel Rochman concluded in Booklist that Fair, Brown, and Trembling "has the enduring appeal of the neglected child who's really the best."

Biographical and Critical Sources

PERIODICALS

Black Issues Book Review, January-February, 2002, Natasha K. Woods, review of Imani's Music, p. 78.

Booklist, May 15, 1995, Hazel Rochman, review of Do the Whales Still Sing?, p. 1652; September 1, 1996, Hazel Rochman, review of Gift of the Sun: A Tale from South Africa, p. 145; October 1, 1998, Helen Rosenberg, review of The Stone: A Persian Legend of the Magi, p. 332; September 1, 2000, Hazel Rochman, review of Fair, Brown, and Trembling: An Irish Cinderella Story, p. 120; February 15, 2001, Ilene Cooper, review of The Star-Bearer: A Creation Myth from Ancient Egypt, p. 1134; February 15, 2002, Hazel Rochman, review of Imani's Music, p. 1036; January 1, 2004, Carolyn Phelan, review of The Elephant's Pillow, p. 882; October 1, 2004, John Green, review of The Tale of Paradise Lost, p. 340; April 15, 2006, John Stewig, review of To Everything There Is a Season, p. 50.

Bulletin of the Center for Children's Books, December, 1996, review of Gift of the Sun, p. 153; July, 2000, review of Fair, Brown, and Trembling, p. 395; March, 2001, review of The Star-Bearer, p. 262; February, 2006, Elizabeth Bush, review of To Everything There Is a Season, p. 260.

Christian Science Monitor, November 19, 1998, review of The Stone, p. 17.

Five Owls, September, 1993, review of The Dove, p. 12.

Horn Book, November-December, 1996, Martha V. Parravano, review of Gift of the Sun, p. 730; March, 2001, review of The Star-Bearer, p. 219; November-December, 2004, Deirdre F. Baker, review of The Tale of Paradise Lost, p. 719.

Kirkus Reviews, November 15, 2001, review of Imani's Music, p. 1616; October 1, 2003, review of The Elephant's Pillow, p. 1230; October 1, 2004, review of The Tale of Paradise Lost, p. 971; February 1, 2006, review of To Everything There Is a Season, p. 129.

Publishers Weekly, May 15, 1995, review of Do the Whales Still Sing?, p. 72; September 16, 1996, review of Gift of the Sun, p. 83; September 28, 1998, review of The Stone, p. 59; August 21, 2000, review of Fair, Brown, and Trembling, p. 71; February 26, 2001, review of The Star-Bearer, p. 86; December 10, 2001, review of Imani's Music, p. 70; December 8, 2003, review of The Elephant's Pillow, p. 60; October 25, 2004, review of The Tale of Paradise Lost, p. 48; January 30, 2006, review of To Everything There Is a Season, p. 72.

School Librarian, November, 1996, review of Gift of the Sun, p. 148; autumn, 2000, review of Fair, Brown, and Trembling, p. 135; autumn, 2001, review of The Star-Bearer, p. 136.

School Library Journal, September 16, 1996, Barbara Kiefer, review of Gift of the Sun, p. 192; October, 1998, Anne Connor, review of The Stone, p. 41; September, 2000, Miriam Lang Budin, review of Fair, Brown, and Trembling, p. 214; April, 2001, Nancy Call, review of The Star-Bearer, p. 131; January, 2002, Marianne Saccardi, review of Imani's Music, p. 114; November, 2003, Liza Graybill, review of The Elephant's Pillow, p. 114; January, 2005, Patricia D. Lothrop, review of The Tale of Paradise Lost, p. 138; March, 2006, Linda L. Walkins, review of To Everything There Is a Season, p. 216.

Smithsonian, November, 1996, review of Gift of the Sun, p. 169.

ONLINE

South African Children's Literature News online,http://www.childlit.org.za/ (February 21, 2007), "Jude Daly."