Newman, Barbara Johansen

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Newman, Barbara Johansen

Personal

Married; husband's name Phil; children: Dave, Mike, Ben. Education: B.F.A. with art education certification. Hobbies and other interests: Painting, thrift-store shopping.

Addresses

Home—Needham, MA. Agent—Andrea Cascardi, Transatlantic Literary Agency, Inc., 72 Glengowan Rd., Toronto, Ontario M4N 1G4, Canada. E-mail—barbara@johansennewman.com.

Career

Illustrator, author, and fiber artist. Freelance illustrator, beginning 1982; creator of art for calendars, greeting cards, and advertising. Performer, with husband, for Moonberry Puppet Theatre, c. 1970s. Exhibitions: Fiber sculptures exhibited at shows and galleries, including Kenan Center, 1974-90, and Rhinebeck, NY, 1975-80.

Awards, Honors

Various awards for puppetry and soft sculpture.

Writings

SELF-ILLUSTRATED

Tex and Sugar: A Big City Kitty Ditty, Sterling Publishing (New York, NY), 2007.

ILLUSTRATOR

Chad Merkley, Too Many Me's, Raintree Steck-Vaughn (Austin, TX), 1999.

Michele Torrey, The Case of the Gasping Garbage, and Other Super-Scientific Cases Dutton (New York, NY), 2000.

Michele Torrey, The Case of the Mossy Lake Monster, and Other Super-Scientific Cases, Dutton (New York, NY), 2002.

Michele Torrey, The Case of the Graveyard Ghost, and Other Super-Scientific Cases, Dutton (New York, NY), 2002.

Michele Torrey, The Case of the Barfy Birthday, and Other Super-Scientific Cases, Dutton (New York, NY), 2003.

Natasha Wing, The Night before the Tooth Fairy, Grosset & Dunlap (New York, NY), 2003.

David A. Adler, Bones and the Dog Gone Mystery, Viking (New York, NY), 2004.

David A. Adler, Bones and the Big Yellow Mystery, Viking (New York, NY), 2004.

Louis G. Grambling, Shoo! Scat!, Marshall Cavendish (New York, NY), 2004.

David A. Adler, Bones and the Dinosaur Mystery, Viking (New York, NY), 2005.

David A. Adler, Bones and the Cupcake Mystery, Viking (New York, NY), 2005.

David A. Adler, Bones and the Birthday Mystery, Viking (New York, NY), 2007.

David A. Adler, Bones and the Math Test Mystery, Viking (New York, NY), 2008.

Contributor to periodicals, including Boston Magazine, Boston Globe, Chicago Magazine, Cooking Light, Providence Journal, Miami Herald, Ms., Kiplingers' Report, Soap Opera Digest, Wall Street Journal, and Working Mother.

Sidelights

Barbara Johansen Newman began her creative career as a fiber artist and puppeteer with Moonberry Puppet Theatre before turning to illustration. In addition to creating art for over a dozen books for children, including beginning readers by David A. Alder and the "Doyle and Fossey" mystery series by Michele Torrey, Newman created the original self-illustrated picture book Tex and Sugar: A Big City Kitty Ditty. Praising the illustrator's work in Adler's Bones and the Big Yellow Mystery, Booklist contributor Gillian Engberg wrote that "Newman's expressive acrylics reinforce the meaning in the words while extending the sense of silliness." John Peters noted in the same periodical that the artist's "small ink-and-wash" art "adds comic details" to Torrey's The Case of the Gasping Garbage, and Other Super-Scientific Cases while in an appraisal of The Case of the Mossy Lake Monster, and Other Super-Scientific Cases, School Library Journal contributor Kay Bowes maintained that Newman's drawings "have the right touch of zaniness" to accompany Torrey's humorous text.

Drawing on her talent for creating unique, animated characters from cloth, Newman brings a love of developing expressive characters to her illustration work for Tex and Sugar. In the book, readers meet two larger-than-life, small-town kitty characters with big dreams. Country singers Tex Mex Rex and Sugar Lee Snughead are each determined to find fame in the big city. Although their careers take a slow start at the beginning, when the two aspiring country crooners meet up with each other while singing to the moon on a summer night, their affection for their music—and for each other—inspires their work and makes the duo stars. "I originally wrote this cat tale as part of a collection of poems entitled "Seven Working Kitty City Ditties," Newman explained of Tex and Sugar on the book's Web site, calling the picture book "a heartfelt Valentine to all of my favorite things: Cats and dogs, cowboys, New York City and country music." In School Library Journal, Wanda Meyers-Hines praised the book's "rich, vibrant illustrations," in which Newman's use of "meticulous detail depicts the all-animal cast and a wide range of expressions." Noting that the book's rhyming text, with its encouraging story about following one's dreams, "is unobtrusive," a Kirkus Reviews writer concluded of Newman's colorful cartoon artwork: "It's the illustrations … that star."

Biographical and Critical Sources

PERIODICALS

Booklist, January 1, 2002, Shelle Rosenfeld, review of The Case of the Mossy Lake Monster, and Other Super-Scientific Cases, p. 860; August, 2002, John Peters,

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review of The Case of the Gasping Garbage, and Other Super-Scientific Cases, p. 2122; October 15, 2004, Gillian Engberg, review of Bones and the Big Yellow Mystery, p. 409; October 1, 2005, Connie Fletcher, review of Bones and the Dinosaur Mystery, p. 60.

Kirkus Reviews, July 15, 2002, review of The Case of the Graveyard Ghost, and Other Super-Scientific Cases, p. 1046; March 15, 2007, review of Tex and Sugar: A Big City Kitty Ditty.

School Library Journal, February, 2002, Kay Bowes, review of The Case of the Mossy Lake Monster, and Other Super-Scientific Cases, p. 114; December, 2003, Debbie Whitbeck, review of The Case of the Barfy Birthday, and Other Super-Scientific Cases, p. 114; November, 2004, John Sigwald, review of Shoo! Scat!, p. 104; December, 2004, Corrina Austin, review of Bones and the Dog Gone Mystery, p. 96; October, 2005, Be Astengo, review of Bones and the Dinosaur Mystery, p. 102; May, 2007, Erika Qualls, review of Bones and the Birthday Mystery, p. 84; August, 2007, Wanda Meyers-Hines, review of Tex and Sugar, p. 86.