Johnson, D.B. 1944- (Donald B. Johnson)

Personal

Born November 30, 1944, in Derry, NH; son of Douglas S. and Ruth Johnson; married Linda Michelin (a writer), August 28, 1971; children: three. Ethnicity: "Scotch/English/Norwegian." Education: Attended School of the Art Institute of Chicago; Boston University, B.A. (government), 1966. Hobbies and other interests: Hiking, backpacking.

Addresses

Home—40 Wolf Rd., No. 31, Lebanon, NH 03766. E-mail—dbjohnsonart@gmail.com.

Career

Freelance technical illustrator, comic strip artist, cartoonist, art director, and syndicated editorial artist, beginning 1971; children's book author and illustrator, beginning 2000.

Member

Society of Illustrators.

Awards, Honors

Boston Globe/Horn Book Picture Book Award, New York Times Best Illustrated Children's Books designation, Publishers Weekly Best Books designation, School

Library Journal Best Books designation, and Parenting magazine Best Books designation, all 2000, Massachusetts Book Award for Best Children's Picture Book, Ezra Jack Keats New Writer Award, and National Parenting Publications Award, all 2001, all for Henry Hikes to Fitchburg; Publishers Weekly Best Books designation, 2002, for Henry Builds a Cabin.

Writings

SELF-ILLUSTRATED

Henry Hikes to Fitchburg, Houghton Mifflin (Boston, MA), 2000.

Henry Builds a Cabin, Houghton Mifflin (Boston, MA), 2002.

Henry Climbs a Mountain, Houghton Mifflin (Boston, MA), 2003.

Henry Works, Houghton Mifflin (Boston, MA), 2004.

Eddie's Kingdom, Houghton Mifflin (Boston, MA), 2005.

Four Legs Bad, Two Legs Good!, Houghton Mifflin (Boston, MA), 2007.

ILLUSTRATOR

Linda Michelin, Zuzu's Wishing Cake, Houghton Mifflin (Boston, MA), 2006.

Daniel Pinkwater, Bear's Picture, Houghton Mifflin (Boston, MA), 2008.

Adaptations

Henry Hikes to Fitchburg and Henry Builds a Cabin were adapted for videocassette (closed captioned), narrated by James Naughton with background music by Jon Carroll, Weston Woods (Weston, CT), 2001 and 2003, respectively.

Sidelights

With the publication of his first illustrated children's book, Henry Hikes to Fitchburg, D.B. Johnson made a distinct mark in the world of children's literature. In addition to the praise he has earned for his original picture-book stories, Johnson has also contributed his art to stories by authors such as Linda Michelin and Daniel Pinkwater. His "bright, bouncy collage-type pictures" were cited as highlights of Michelin's multicultural picture book Zuzu's Wishing Cake by Booklist contributor Hazel Rochman, and School Library Journal critic Amy Lilien-Harper also praised Johnson's "mixed-media artwork." While book illustration is a relatively recent undertaking for Johnson, publication is not: he is a nationally recognized freelance illustrator whose work has appeared in the pages of such well-known publications as the New York Times Book Review, Newsday, and the Washington Post. In addition, Johnson's editorial art began appearing in syndication in the 1980s.

In the picture book Henry Hikes to Fitchburg Johnson introduces one of his most endearing characters: Henry the bear. Henry is based on Henry David Thoreau, a nineteenth-century writer and philosopher who advocated a simple way of life, unencumbered by material possessions. In Henry Hikes to Fitchburg Henry and one of his bear friends plot two different itineraries as they travel from Concord to Fitchburg, Massachusetts, hoping to see who will arrive in Fitchburg first. Underscoring his chosen path through life, Henry takes the slower, scenic route and enjoys the natural surroundings on his journey. His friend prefers to work at different odd jobs, earning enough money to take the train to the destination. As Johnson's story plays out, readers count Henry's miles and add up his friend's wages. Writing in School Library Journal, Nina Lindsay noted that "Johnson makes this philosophical musing accessible to children, who will recognize a structural parallel to ‘The Tortoise and the Hare.’" A Horn Book critic dubbed Henry Hikes to Fitchburg "an auspicious picture book debut."

Winner of several prestigious awards, Henry Hikes to Fitchburg "works on several levels," according to Booklist contributor Tim Arnold. "Johnson's adaptation of a paragraph taken from Thoreau's Walden … illuminates the contrast between materialistic and naturalistic views of life without ranting or preaching," Arnold added. As he stated in a Publishers Weekly interview with Shannon Maughan, "We don't know if this actually happened [to Thoreau]," referring to the Fitchburg challenge. "But I wondered what would happen if it re- ally took place, and I wanted to write it in a way that children could understand." Although Thoreau's famous book Walden "inspired the story," as the author/illustrator added, "it's not necessary that readers be familiar with Thoreau to ‘get it.’"

Johnson was first attracted to Thoreau's writings after reading Walden in high school. However, as Johnson revealed to SATA, his lifelong attraction to the beauty of nature and the principles of living a simple life began during childhood, when his family moved to a home his father built on a country road in New Hampshire. "That first winter we kids, all five of us, scrunched up around the fireplace at night before racing through the halls to our cold bedrooms," Johnson recalled. "There inside the covers at the foot of our beds, my mother had placed warm bricks wrapped in newspaper…. It was a great polar adventure." As an adult, Johnson and his wife returned to the rural town to raise their own family.

A "worthy sequel" to Henry the Bear's first adventure, according to a Publishers Weekly reviewer, Henry Builds a Cabin finds spring approaching, and Henry planning to construct a small, one-room dwelling for himself. However, Henry's bear friends Emerson, Alcott, and Miss Lydia wonder if the small house will be large enough to fit Henry. Ultimately, they discover that Henry only wants a roof over his head as shelter from inclement weather; a nearby bean patch serves quite well as a dining area and his new home's natural surroundings happily satisfy all the bear's other household needs. As a Kirkus Reviews critic wrote, "in an effective retelling of … Thoreau's cabin-building project, Johnson relates with lighthearted humor how Henry builds a cabin barely big enough for himself." According to Horn Book contributor Mary M. Burns, Johnson "translate[s] Thoreau's philosophy into a picture-book format [that] … is an example of ingenuity at work."

The frugal bear's story continues in Henry Climbs a Mountain, an imaginative tale in which Henry meets a runaway bear-slave. Accepting his punishment for refusing to pay taxes to a state that allows slavery, Henry daydreams about hiking while serving his sentence in a local jail. Using his cell wall as a canvas, the bear depicts an imaginary outdoor scene where he meets a fellow bear, obviously an escaped slave. After helping the stranger on his journey north, Henry returns to his small cell and finds himself freed the following morning after a friend pays his tax bill. As keen readers will observe, the bear has been free, if only in his mind, during the entire experience. "Despite dealing with complex themes," noted School Library Journal critic Eve Ortega, "Johnson … does a fine job of explaining the essential conflicts without oversimplifying them." While admitting that younger children may not grasp the complexities surrounding taxes and slavery, a Kirkus Reviews critic nonetheless predicted that fans of the "Henry" books will likely "welcome another story about a familiar and unique character whose deep moral convictions are expressed in simple, daily deeds." Noting the story's roots in Thoreau's well-known essay Civil Disobedience, Booklist contributor Carolyn Phelan concluded that Johnson's "fanciful picture book" pairs a "satisfying" story with "fresh and inviting" illustrations.

Henry's rambles around the local countryside near his modest home are the focus of Henry Works, which use "quiet humor and attention to natural settings" to "respectfully convey … Thoreau's philosophy of simplicity," according to a Publishers Weekly reviewer. A naturalist and philosopher, the bear's mind is always active, although to observers he seems to accomplish very little. However, he gleans information from his rambles that proves useful to the many friends and neighbors that he meets, showing readers that Henry's "walk, work, and writing are all one," according to Horn Book contributor Joanna Rudge Long. Noting the book's popularity among Henry's loyal fans, Phelan remarked that "Johnson's distinctive artwork, which uses geometric shapes to strong effect, greatly enhances" the book's impact during story hours.

In addition to his "Henry" books, Johnson has also created several other characters to engage young readers. In Eddie's Kingdom a young artist wishes that all the arguments he hears from the tenants inhabiting his family's apartment building—a storybook group of curmudgeonly neighbors—would end. Eddie draws a picture of the apartment building, showing all his neighbors in such a way that exposes the foibles at the root of each of their disagreements, and sharing his picture allows everyone to understand and get along with each other. The author/illustrator "once again successfully seeks ways to achieve a ‘peaceable kingdom,’" wrote a Publishers Weekly reviewer, and in Booklist Karen Hutt concluded that Johnson's "engaging story … recognizes the irritations of living in close proximity and a child's simple wish for harmony." Another original picture book, Four Legs Bad, Two Legs Good!, takes place on a rustic farm where Farmer Orvie, a pig, spends too much time napping to keep things in proper order.

As Johnson once explained to SATA, he was inspired in his career choice of artist by the childhood summer visits of an uncle who brought boxes of left-over printing paper, as well as by another uncle, an architect, who "drew wild characters he dreamed up on the spot. Once he gave us a Walter Foster drawing book. That year I used hundred of sheets of paper copying his crazy faces and adding others from the drawing book. Every summer after that, I dived into that big box of paper and drew some more. All that drawing got me a lot of friends." "In school I became the ‘class artist,’ but I didn't take art very seriously," he admitted. It was not until his re-reading of Thoreau as a college student that the choice was finally made. "This time I understood, not just [Thoreau's] ideas about nature, but also his ideas about how to live. If people weren't working so hard to buy stuff, he said, they could spend more time doing what they love. That was an important idea. I decided to spend my life doing art."

Biographical and Critical Sources

PERIODICALS

Book, January, 2001, Kathleen Odean, review of Henry Hikes to Fitchburg, p. 83.

Booklist, April 15, 2000, Tim Arnold, review of Henry Hikes to Fitchburg, p. 1548; October 1, 2003, Carolyn Phelan, review of Henry Climbs a Mountain, p. 324; September 1, 2004, Carolyn Phelan, review of Henry Works, p. 133; October 15, 2005, Karen Hutt, review of Eddie's Kingdom, p. 57; October 1, 2006, Hazel Rochman, review of Zuzu's Wishing Cake, p. 60.

Bulletin of the Center for Children's Books, May, 2002, Janice M. Del Negro, review of Henry Builds a Cabin, p. 328; November, 2004, Karen Coates, review of Henry Works, p. 128.

Horn Book, May, 2000, review of Henry Hikes to Fitchburg, p. 296; July-August, 2002, Mary M. Burns, review of Henry Builds a Cabin, p 448; September-October, 2004, Joanna Rudge Long, review of Henry Works, p. 569.

Kirkus Reviews, February 15, 2002, review of Henry Builds a Cabin, p. 259; September 1, 2003, review of Henry Climbs a Mountain, p. 1125; July 15, 2004, review of Henry Works, p. 688; September 1, 2005, review of Eddie's Kingdom, p. 975.

Language Arts, March, 2002, review of Henry Hikes to Fitchburg, p. 355.

New York Times Book Review, October 15, 2000, Simon Rodberg, review of Henry Hikes to Fitchburg, p. 31; May 19, 2002, Maud Lavin, review of Henry Builds a Cabin, p. 18.

Publishers Weekly, April 10, 2000, review of Henry Hikes to Fitchburg, p. 98; June 26, 2000, Shannon Maughan, "Flying Starts," p. 30; February 4, 2002, review of Henry Builds a Cabin, p. 76; September 1, 2003, review of Henry Climbs a Mountain, p. 91; July 19, 2004, review of Henry Works, p. 161; August 15, 2005, review of Eddie's Kingdom, p. 57.

Reading Today, June, 2001, "Ezra Jack Keats Awards Presented," p. 9.

School Library Journal, June, 2000, Nina Lindsay, review of Henry Hikes to Fitchburg, p. 116; December, 2000, review of Henry Hikes to Fitchburg, p. 54; March, 2002, review of Henry Builds a Cabin, p. 190; September, 2003, Eve Ortega, review of Henry Climbs a Mountain, p. 181; September, 2004, Marian Creamer, review of Henry Works, p. 169; November, 2005, Debbie Stewart Hoskins, review of Eddie's Kingdom, p. 94; October, 2006, Amy Lilien-Harper, review of Zuzu's Wishing Cake, p. 118.

ONLINE

Concord Magazine Online,http://www.concordma.com/magazine/ July-August, 2000), Deborah Bier, review of Henry Hikes to Fitchburg.

D.B. Johnson Home Page,dbjohnsonart.com (October 27, 2007).

Houghton Mifflin Web site,http://www.houghtonmifflinbooks.com/ (October 27, 2007), interview with Johnson.